Digital and mobile Ad Budgets on a equal footing with Television Ads

Move over television ads, the new kids are on the block! Companies are now allocating just as much of their ad budgets to digital and mobile advertising as they do television ads. That’s the recent finding from a new Accenture report, “The Future of Digital Advertising: Overcoming the Challenges to Higher ROI and Revenues.”

The report indicates that advertisers now spend 41% of their budgets on digital and mobile, which is about the same as they spend on TV ads. Print advertising is significantly lower at 10%. The share of ad budget for all other types of advertising combined is 12%, Accenture finds.

Ad spending will likely continue to shift to digital over time. Nearly all respondents in the study said they expect digital advertising to comprise more than 50% of their total marketing budget within the next two years. Some said that digital could account for as much as 60% of their advertising budgets.

The move towards digital is driven by a few factors. The biggest reason, according the report, is the lure of greater returns. Ad buyers polled say they believe that the convergence of digital and traditional advertising, and the large amounts of data that are available, will help them target an audience with even more accuracy. Respondents said that doing so will lead to greater returns on their ad investments.

Those who sell ads had similar reasons for making the digital shift. According to the report, sellers think convergence and data will help them maximize the use of inventory, boosting revenues as a result.