Where's Digital Advertising Headed?

The biggest challenge for advertising professionals and marketers in the online world is staying on top of an ever shifting marketplace. Things might have become a little more predictable in recent years but are still less so than in the offline ad world. Technological changes still make digital advertising a shifty business.

However, some trends and proportionate market shares are likely to prevail and develop in a predictable manner. One thing most observers are pretty sure of is that the digital ad market will in the foreseeable future show no signs of saturation. According to the Digital Market Outlook by Statista, the total worldwide digital ad revenue in 2017 is likely to stand at more than $227 billion. This figure could increase by more than 46 percent to $332 billion in four years' time.

Some argue that social media advertising will likely grow disproportionately faster than the rest and might end up taking a bigger share than conservative estimates predict. However, from today's vantage point it seems to be a safe bet search ads will continue to account for the biggest chunk of digital ad revenue, making up 40 percent share of the total revenue.

This chart was first published by FIPP.