European marketers’ investments in online display and social media advertising will see double-digit growth over the next five years to reach €28.7 billion in 2020, up from €14.4 billion this year, according to a new Forrester forecast. Fueled by video and mobile adoption, programmatic adoption will skyrocket everywhere in Europe, and, by 2020, more than half of EU video advertising revenue will be sold and executed programmatically. Mobile will be next to go programmatic. “Europe will see a major shift in the way online display advertising is bought and sold,” writes Forrester analyst Samantha Merlivat.

Other key findings from the report include: 

  • Mobile online display overtakes desktop. Desktop online display revenue will marginally start to decline after 2018, while it will grow annually by 34.9% and 22.9% for mobile and tablet, respectively, between 2015 and 2020.
  • Smartphone and tablet together will account for 64% of online display advertising spend in 2020. Smartphones will experience the strongest growth and reach €6.5 billion in 2020, up from €1.4 billion in 2015. 
  • Ad blocking becomes a serious threat to online media advertising revenue. In Q2 2015, 77 million monthly active users were using ad-blocking software in Europe, up 35% from the previous year. Ad blocking costs the advertising industry an estimated $21.8 billion globally in 2015. Forrester expects that number to climb as ad blockers gain in popularity, constraining revenue growth for publishers.

Visit the B2C Marketing blog to learn more about this forecast.