After confirmation that advertising on the Internet is a fast-growing phenomenon in New Zealand, a study from IAB New Zealand shows that Kiwis are putting most of their online marketing dollars into classified and display advertising.

Global search marketing trends
Internationally, search engine advertising and getting your website to the top of major search engines - such as Google - is the number one priority. Global statistics show search engine marketing has the majority share in online advertising:

Australia - 46%
United Kingdom - 57%
United States - 41%

Search advertising in New Zealand
Here - where the online marketplace is smaller and advertisers less Internet-focused - search marketing accounts for only 25% of our online advertising dollars. In contrast, classified ads and display advertising gobble up 44% and 31% of our online advertising spend.

Why the discrepancy?
The most likely cause is a lack of awareness in the field of Internet advertising, in both New Zealand’s business and advertising sectors. As an online market, New Zealand is still in the early stages of development when compared to other nations, but this doesn’t necessarily equal a weakness. From a ‘glass half full’ perspective, it means there is still a huge amount of opportunity for search marketing and optimisation in New Zealand. And interestingly, the cost of search advertising in the local market is about half that of international markets.

Stay tuned, as the fledgling New Zealand search market takes off…