Online advertising spend surges 41% in Britain...
Date Published 08/10/2007 - Click here for more recent news
There have been 3 tangentially-related reports this week about the on-line market-place, that caught the attention of those in EASIserv.com towers who are charged with monitoring such publications and they’re well worth evaluating in the same time-frame.
1. The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB)
Firstly, we had the ‘good-news report’ from The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) in a report compiled with PricewaterhouseCoopers and the World Advertising Research Centre that said online ad-spend in Britain could reach a new high of £2.75 billion pounds by the end of the year.
The growth puts online ad-spend above the size of the direct mail sector, which had a market share of 11.8 percent. "The online market is developing at an astounding rate and once again we see exceptional growth and a significant increase in market share," Guy Phillipson, chief executive of the IAB, said in a statement.
"90% of Internet users are on broadband now and nearly 40% are using wireless. We are also seeing women and the over 50s spending far more time online, which makes the Internet a very attractive medium to a broader set of advertisers."
2. The Click Fraud Index
Secondly, there’s the ‘not-so-good-news’ report from The Click Fraud Index, that monitors and reports on data gathered from the Click Fraud Network, that the overall industry average click fraud rate was 15.8% for Q2 2007. This is an increase from 14.1% for the same quarter in 2006 and 14.8% for Q1 2007. The average click fraud rate of PPC advertisements appearing on search engine content networks, including Google AdSense and the Yahoo Publisher Network, was 25.6%. That’s up from 21.9% for Q1 2007 and 19.2% for Q4 of 2006.
3. Association of Payment and Clearing Services (APACS)
Thirdly, the figures released by the Association of Payment and Clearing Services (APACS) show that though online banking fraud dropped by 67% in the first six months of 2007 compared to the first half of 2006, there was a 42% increase in ‘phishing’ incidents.
Credit card fraud rose 26% in the same period and this was largely down to a phenomenon known as card not present, or CNP, fraud. CNP fraud happens when payments are made without the retailer seeing the card being used, such as when items are bought online or over the phone.
Sandra Quinn, director of communications at APACS, said: "Cardholders should be aware that the majority of online fraud involves a criminal obtaining card details in the real world that are then used to shop fraudulently online. "We continue to urge people to register with the secure online payment systems - MasterCard SecureCode and Verified by Visa - which help prevent cards being used fraudulently over the internet," she continued.
So are there some crumbs of comfort we pick-up from the foregoing reports? Or should we all be rushing to the cupboard under the stairs and pulling up the drawbridge at EASIserv.com towers and locking ourselves away for the duration!
Having been active in the online-industry pretty much since its commercial inception, at EASIserv.com we take a ‘bullish’ view: that these reports contain mostly positive signs! No, we’re not saying it’s a ‘positive’ that people are ‘click-frauding’ or ‘phishing’ in greater numbers – but it is positive that we’re being made aware of it more quickly and that serious people are putting in place seriously good coping strategies and mechanisms to identify and guard against it.
But classically, whilst the ‘good-news’ report of the exceptional growth in the online market is welcomed by everybody in that on-line market - it’s just as sure that, throughout history, where there’s been astounding commercial growth in anything, there’s always been an astounding amount of interest by the criminal classes in ripping-it-off too! As long as there are gold-strikes - there’ll be claim-jumpers.
But you know, whilst entirely understanding the legitimate concerns being raised in these reports: at EASIserv.com we take the view that where prospectors continue to search for the 'mother-lode' there’ll always be a good living to be had - even if it's only through selling picks-and-shovels!
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