In 2021, more than half of global advertising spend will go to Internet advertising

However, the growth rate is falling rapidly as the internet advertising market continues to develop. Internet advertising grew by 17% in 2018, but based on the first half of 2019, growth of just 12% is expected for the current year as a whole. In 2021, growth of only 9% is expected compared to the previous year. The growth rate of the internet advertising market is therefore slowly approaching the growth rate of the market as a whole.

This growth will be driven by the online video and social media channels, for which average annual growth rates of 18% and 17% respectively are expected until 2021. These channels are benefiting from continuous technological improvements in smartphone technology, transmission rates and targeting, combined with strong growth in investment in content. The 5G technology launched earlier this year - including in Switzerland - will further improve the brand experience by making mobile connections significantly faster and more responsive. 

Paid search, which accounted for 37% of internet advertising in 2018, grew by 11% this year, although the growth rate is expected to fall to 7% in 2021. In search, many innovations are taking place in the voice sector that are not yet monetized. Online classified advertising - ads that sit alongside other advertising rather than content such as job listings, real estate and used car listings - is increasingly losing ground to other digital channels and free alternatives. Online classifieds markets still grew by 9 percent worldwide in 2018, 
are already beginning to shrink in some markets. Global spending is expected to fall by 1.6 percent in 2021.

Much of the growth in internet advertising investment is coming from small, local companies that spend their entire budget on platforms such as Google and Facebook, as these offer simple self-service tools for managing campaigns, and from highly targeted measures. Large companies, on the other hand, continue to rely to a much greater extent on traditional media.

"The technology, media, finance and services industries are the most advanced in their use of modern digital channels," says Matt James, Global Brand President at Zenith. "And even within these sectors, brands still rely on traditional media to create broad mass awareness and reinforce brand values."

Within traditional media, print has long been in decline as online platforms have taken away readers and advertising money. Advertising revenue for printed newspapers and magazines peaked at 164 billion US dollars in 2007 and will only reach 70 billion US dollars this year. TV is now also starting to shrink, albeit not by anywhere near the same amount: 184 billion US dollars in 2018 will become 180 billion US dollars in 2021.

In addition to radio, which is growing by 1% annually, out-of-home and cinema are also on the rise in the traditional media sector. Out-of-home providers are continuing to expand their digital display networks, achieving annual sales growth of 4%. Cinema, which only has a global advertising market share of 0.8%, is even growing at 12% per year, which is mainly due to a boom in the popularity of cinema in China.

Zenith forecasts global advertising growth of 4.6 percent to 639 billion US dollars this year, an increase of 28 billion US dollars. At USD 13 billion, almost half of this comes from the USA, due to the very rapid growth of internet advertising. China grew by 4 billion US dollars, the UK and India by 1 billion US dollars each.

"The time when internet advertising reaches the 50 percent mark of global advertising expenditure is getting closer and closer. This is the first time it has appeared in our forecasts," says Jonathan Barnard, Head of Forecasting at Zenith. "However, 2021 will be the first year of single-digit growth in internet advertising since 2001 - the year the dotcom bubble burst."