INTERACTIVE BYTES : 2007: More Money. More launches. More Money.

AdMedia,  Feb 1, 2007  by Alistair Thompson

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Online advertising revenues in the Australian, UK and US are roughly split three ways - Display, Classified and Search Engine Marketing. It's currently guesswork putting figures to online spend in NZ and how it breaks down - but we could be fairly safe in assuming something similar here.

That said, if you're in the publishing business, you'd be keen to gain some dominance in the Display and Classified advertising categories.

In 2006 it was made clear that online is no longer the orphan child of its larger traditional media brethren. The various media giants finally roared awake to the fact that online is now where their business future lies.

The "lion's roar" would obviously be the startling Fairfax purchase of TradeMe in March '06, snatching NZ's online golden goose (with a better offer) from APN and ACP (Publishing & Broadcasting) and securing an audience- driving powerhouse in the Classified category.

In 2005 APN had already launched its Search4 brands for jobs, cars and property, but then in May '06 in an intriguing show of faith in vision, purchased 50% of then still new, developing and unprofitable free classified & business directory site Finda.co.nz.

July and August were a busy time in the competitive market with both Realestate.co.nz and Autotrader.co.nz relaunching with sizeable ad campaigns in 2006, while ACP continued its momentum to bring Taste.co.nz and MetroLive.co.nz to market as well.

About the same time TradeMe Jobs launched offering a much lower price-point for job advertisers and the possibility of much greater audience volumes for their money. Market leader Seek.co.nz has managed to grow job listings and audience steadily, even in the face of the year's activity.

November and December saw the year finish with a flurry. In November Telecom announced it's putting Yellow Pages on the auction block with early interest from the major publishers withering at the possible $2.4 billion price-tag.

APN and Fairfax raced to market with new (and remarkably similar) site redesigns which provide for more expansive advertising formats.

Then in December Xtra announced a new partnership Yahoo7 dropping Microsoft's MSN, talking about Yahoo!Xtra maximising online ad revenues, and anticipating swift growth in the market.

So here we are starting 2007 with online media manoeuvres continuing apace as ACP announces a joint venture with APN around its Sellmefree classified brand in an attempt to take on TradeMe. It may take a while, though, to build its audience from 41,000 UVs a month to catch TradeMe's three million!

Yahoo!Xtra is due to go live in March this year and with MSN available in the NZ market we have to wonder whether Publishing & Broadcasting's MSN relationship in Australia (through NineMSN.com.au) may manifest here through ACP Media.

And we can't forget the much-anticipated re-launch of Scoop.co.nz 3.0 in April, which we hope won't steal Yahoo!Xtra's thunder!

So what does all this mean for advertisers? It means exponential growth in the availability of quality online advertising inventory - availability of larger display formats, rich media opportunities, contextual placements and increased opportunities in video advertising. Roll on 100% growth in your spend online in 2007!

InterActive Bytes is compiled for AdMedia by Scoop.co.nz, a leading online news site attracting a readership of over 400,000 unique visitors a month. Send feedback to co-editor Alastair Thompson (alastair@scoop.co.nz).

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