US Auto Industry Ahead of the Pack for Digital Ad Spend

The US automotive industry will spend $7.30 billion on digital advertising in 2015 and will continue to grow digital spend, reaching $12.08 billion by 2019, according to a new eMarketer report, “The US Automotive Industry 2015: Digital Ad Spending Forecast and Trends,” part of our new report series, “Digital Ad Spending Benchmarks by Industry.”

Digital ad spending by automakers and other industry players will rise 17.3% this year. The auto industry is the second-largest digital ad spender in the US in 2015, after retail. Overall, 12.5% of digital ad dollars in the US will be spent by the auto industry, and throughout our forecast period it will gain share due to faster-than-average growth rates. By 2019, 13.2% of US digital ad spending will be auto industry-related.

Most of that spending—60% this year, eMarketer estimates—will be on direct-response efforts.
The auto industry leans more toward direct-response ads than most others in the US, according to our estimates. Only travel (72% direct response), retail (65%) and financial services (62%) spend a greater share of digital outlays on ads designed to elicit an immediate action, rather than on branding-oriented efforts.

In order to raise the percentage of brand dollars in the sector, “The next frontier is convincing marketers that digital is suitable for branding,” said Richard Flynn, vice president, category sales director, autos, at AOL.

eMarketer estimates that just over half of auto industry digital ad spending goes toward PC-based impressions, while mobile accounts for 47% of spending.

Courtesy of eMarketer