Advertisers value UK web users most

According to the Financial Times, UK internet users are the most valuable in Europe to advertisers, attracting even more per capita advertising expenditure than online consumers in the US. Advertisers spent an average of €82.46 (£56) marketing to each active UK web user in 2006, according to figures released on Monday by the Internet Advertising Bureau Europe, the trade association, and PriceWaterhouseCoopers, the professional services group. The sum is more than twice the €39 spent marketing to each web surfer across the 13 European countries measured by the study. The comparable US figure was about €60 last year.

Internet advertising has grown quickly in the UK, making it the most advanced web ad market worldwide in terms of the share of total advertising budgets allocated to web-based marketing. It puts the total amount of revenue from search engine marketing, web classifieds, display, directories and email campaigns in all 13 countries at about €8bn last year.

This is all a long way from Bill Thompson’s article back in 2003 “Why Online ads do not work”