IAB Romania has recently released the numbers for the ROADS study (Romanian Online Advertising Study) done together with PricewaterhouseCoopers in order to get an official and industry recognized figure for the size of the Romanian online advertising market. Thus, based on the research done, 2008 has brought an online advertising market volume of 72.4 mil RON (approx. 20 mil Euro), a 70% increase (in RON terms, in Euro the increase was less than 50%, due to exchange rate fluctuations) from the 42.6 mil RON in 2007 (approx. 15 mil Euro).
The study gathered data from the largest 11 advertising agencies, as well as from the largest online publishers, both groups representing more than 600 of the largest web sites in Romania. Although a relevant number for the industry, unfortunately the study was unable to gather data about all forms of online advertising budgets spent in, from or for the Romanian market, thus leaving a gray area still uncovered.
More specifically and among others, the study was unable to collect data about Google money spent in or from Romania, since search engine marketing data is not really available, Google keeping its secrets well protected. However, as with all research studies, there is always room for improvement and I think that in the coming years we will get more and more complete data about the online advertising market in Romania.
source: IAB Romania.
