Online Real Estate Ad Dollars Projected to Reach $8 Billion in 2012!

Online real estate ad spend projected to reach $8 billion in 2012
Report projects 48% growth in total local online ad spend in '08
Friday, December 07, 2007

Inman News

The "Big Three" classified advertising categories -- automotive, recruitment and real estate -- are expected to have a 37.7 percent share of all online ad spending in 2008, and to have an 18.3 percent share of total ad spending, a research and consulting company reported today.

Borrell Associates, in a 2008 forecast report released today, also expects real estate to have an 8.7 percent share of the total online advertising market in 2008, and a 4 percent share of all advertising.

About 23.5 percent of the anticipated $12.3 billion real estate ad spend in 2008 will be spent online, compared to 48.9 percent of recruitment ad spending and 9.4 percent of automotive ad spending.

And the total spend on online real estate advertising is expected to grow 12 percent in 2008 compared to 2007.

Total spending on local online advertising is expected to rise 48 percent in 2008, to a total of $12.6 billion, according to Borrell's "2008 Outlook: Local Online Advertising" report.

Local online advertising is expected to total $8.5 billion this year, up from $6 billion in 2006, $4.6 billion in 2005, and $2.8 billion in 2004.

Local-search advertising is expected to more than double in 2008, to $5 billion, with locally placed online video tripling to about $1.3 billion.

Locally owned real estate businesses are projected to spend about $3.5 billion on all advertising types this year, with about $702 million of that amount, or 20 percent, going to online ads.

Real estate services companies are projected to spend $8 billion on advertising in 2012, with about $3.3 billion, or 40.9 percent of this total, spent on online ads, according to a table in the report.

That would represent a 41.2 percent increase from the projected 2007 real estate ad-spending level.

Credit and mortgage services companies are expected to spend about $24.2 billion on all ad types in 2012, with $2.9 billion, or 12.1 percent, devoted to online ads. And financial services companies are expected to spend $6.4 billion on all advertising in 2012, with $952 million, or 14.8 percent, going to online ads.

Pure-play Internet companies are projected to account for about 43.7 percent of local online ad revenue this year, with newspapers taking in 33.4 percent, directories accounting for 10.1 percent and broadcast television pulling in 9.3 percent. Magazines, other print publications and radio have a small share of the pie.

"We ... expect that 2008 will bring more announcements about network affiliations between the pure-play Internet companies like AOL, Yahoo and others as these larger sites hit a wall in national sales," the report states.

"This trend began more than a year ago when Yahoo and Google started forming relationships with newspaper companies and television stations to drive both national and local online sales. Formerly sworn enemies are seeing the wisdom of combining their strengths to increase revenues for both sides."

Local advertisers, according to the Borrell report, "are becoming less willing to purchase mass advertising on the Internet and are much more inclined to try paid search and video advertising formats," and, "The decade-long era in which the banner ad ruled the Web appears to be drawing to a close."

Twice as much online video advertising will be placed locally compared to nationally, the report states, and "newspaper companies are at the forefront of online video sales."

Online banner advertising is forecast to slow to single-digit growth in 2008 as video and paid-search ads gain steam, according to the report.