Summary

The global online advertising market has experienced robust growth, as advertisers shift more of their spending to digital platforms. By 2020, digital advertising is expected to account for 50% of the global advertising market, a notable increase when online advertising investment ($209 billion) overtook TV advertising ($178 billion) for the first time. The dominance of this market is largely attributed to technology giants such as Google and Facebook, who together amassed 80% of France's market share. Key trends include the rise of mobile advertising, programmatic buying - which accounted for 67% of the display market - and increased investment in video advertising, which exploded from 67 million euros to 847 million euros. Despite this growth, the sector faces challenges linked to the growing use of ad blockers, with 11% of French Internet users employing such software. Regulatory measures for greater transparency and the fight against advertising fraud have come into force with the implementation of decree no. 2017-159

French online advertising market: A landscape of growth and challenges

The French online advertising market is experiencing significant growth. Sales reached approximately between 4.5 and 5 billion euros, marking a solid 17% increase on the previous year. Market size has more than doubled, reflecting the dynamic nature of this digital arena. Search and social display are the main trends in the French market, almost exclusively dominated by Google for search and mainly used by social networks for display. In just one year, investment in search engines rose by 11%, to around 2 to 2.5 billion euros, while social display revenues grew by an impressive 63%, to over one billion euros.

Other segments of the digital market also saw growth, with affiliate marketing, comparison shopping and email marketing collectively generating sales of around 700-800 million euros. Online advertising via cell phones saw growing demand, with Spain, France and the Netherlands leading the way in terms of growth in mobile advertising demand. This shift towards mobile content is indicative of a broader trend in the European market, underlining the importance of mobile platforms in modern advertising strategies.

In terms of market structure, the French online advertising landscape is marked by a high degree of concentration. Giants such as Google and Facebook hold 80% of the market, eclipsing the presence of other players. Programmatic advertising has become increasingly widespread, and holds 62% of the digital display advertising market. Despite this flourishing market, challenges have arisen, not least due to the use of ad-blocking software. Some 11% of French Internet users are said to use ad-blocking software, indicating a clear demand for less invasive advertising experiences.

In terms of market regulation, recent measures, including decree no. 2017-159, aim to strengthen transparency and combat advertising fraud. This legal framework came into force at the beginning of 2018 and represents an important step towards regulating the flourishing digital advertising industry. In summary, the online advertising market in France has been characterized by strong growth and diversification, with mobile advertising driving demand. However, the dominance of a few major players and the growing use of ad blockers are shaping the future of the market, alongside new regulatory efforts to maintain fair and transparent practices.

The pioneers and forerunners of online advertising.

In the rapidly evolving field of online advertising, a few key players have emerged as trailblazers, shaping the way brands connect with their audiences in the digital space. At the zenith of this market, Alphabet and its subsidiary Google, Facebook and Amazon make up the triumvirate of market leaders. These tech behemoths hold a significant share of the market, leveraging their vast stores of user data and sophisticated algorithms to deliver targeted advertising with unrivalled precision.

  • Alphabet-Google: Alphabet, Google's parent company, reigns supreme over the online advertising sector, mainly thanks to its search engine platform. Google's AdWords and AdSense services represent the gold standard in search advertising and display network services respectively, offering advertisers unrivalled access to users across the web.
  • Facebook: Known as the social media giant, Facebook, with its ecosystem that includes Instagram and WhatsApp, has revolutionized the way brands engage with consumers. The platform's granular targeting capabilities, fueled by its extensive user data, have made it an indispensable tool for advertisers looking to reach specific demographics through social display ads.
  • Amazon: Initially an e-commerce platform, Amazon has rapidly expanded into the online advertising sector, offering a wealth of consumer purchase data that brands can leverage to promote their products directly to potential buyers on Amazon's platform and beyond.

While the leaders continue to dominate the market, a cohort of challengers and specialist agencies are carving out their own niches, contributing to the industry's diversity and dynamism:

  • Yahoo! and Microsoft Advertising: Pioneers of the web, Yahoo! and Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads) have continued to develop their advertising platforms, enabling advertisers to reach audiences through their networks, which, while smaller than Google's, still represent valuable market segments.
  • SoLocal: A long-standing operator in the digital space, SoLocal Group focuses its efforts on connecting local businesses with online consumers through specialized advertising services, underlining the persistent need for visibility in local searches.
  • Pinterest: As a visual discovery engine, Pinterest has differentiated itself by allowing users to pin and share images that interest them, creating a unique environment for advertisers to reach consumers through personalized visual content.
  • The Moneytizer, Adverline, Tradelab, Adot, Smart and Critero: These companies are part of the dynamic ecosystem of advertising technology (AdTech) companies that provide a range of services, including programmatic advertising, real-time bidding and retargeting, to meet the following needs.
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  • Number of pages : 30 pages
  • Format : Digital and PDF versions
  • Last update : 05/09/2023
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Summary and extracts

1 Market summary

1.1 Presentation and definition of the online advertising market

According to emarketing.fr , online advertising, or digital advertising, or online advertising includes all advertising communication actions carried out on the Internet

There are two main types of actions

  • display advertising, which consists in inserting messages, banners, buttons, advertising communication videos for an advertiser on websites,
  • search advertising, which works with hyperlinks leading to an advertiser's website, offered to the Internet user when a request is made via a search engine

Online advertising purchases were made in different ways:

- through a classic contract specific to a communication operation, between advertiser and advertising network for example

- through auctions, say" real time bidding or RTB . This method has been in existence since 2000 But lately, it has been programmatic purchasing, a derivative that allows more complex mechanics to develop

The online advertising market has never performed as well in France as it does today, but it is now threatened by the popularity of advertising blockers since the use of blocking software has been constantly increasing since the creation of AdBlock Plus, for example

1.2 The growth of the global market

The graphic below illustrates the evolution of the amount of global spending on digital advertising from **** to **** with forecasts to ****

It should be noted that this figure has risen from ***.** billion dollars in **** to ***.* billion dollars in **** and is expected to be $***.** billion by ****.

In addition, according to a study conducted ...

1.3 The booming French market

The market in figures

According to the **** e-pub Observatory report, produced by the Syndicat des Régies Internet (***)

The graphic below illustrates the evolution of the value of the digital advertising market in France from **** to ****

In addition, the same source indicates that the main trends on the French market are ...

2 Demand analysis

2.1 Companies represent the main market demand

The online advertising market is mainly aimed at advertisers

The graphic the following shows the number of companies that used online paid advertising via search engines, social media and other websites in France in ****

On the whole, **,*** companies from a wide variety of categories used online paid advertising in ****

2.2 Advertisers make extensive use of social displays

Many companies use social networks to advertise their ads

The graphic below illustrates the distribution of social networks favoured by community managers in France to distribute advertising in ****

In ****, **% of community managers surveyed used Facebook to deliver advertising, followed by Instagram (***)

2.3 Demand for mobile advertising drives overall demand

It can be seen that the demand for online advertising in France and other European countries is nowadays very much oriented towards mobile content

The graphic below illustrates the ranking of countries where the number of mobile advertising requests has increased the most year-on-year in Europe in the second half of ...

2.4 Préoccupations des consommateurs à l'égard des données collectées sur internet

La publicité en ligne et le marketing digital en général utilisent le ciblage pour améliorer la performance et la rentabilité des campagnes. Ce ciblage, permettant de faire de la publicité personnalisée, repose notamment sur la collecte des données personnelles [***], en partie accélérée par ...

2.5 La demande B2B : la publicité digitale en tête des dépenses publicitaires des annonceurs

Les dépenses des annonceurs en publicité digitale ont dépassé les dépenses publicitaires traditionnelles depuis ****. Les autres médias (***) concentrent encore la majeure partie des dépenses publicitaires, avec **,*% des dépenses totales.

Répartition des dépenses publicitaires : traditionnelles vs numériques France, ****, en % Source: ****

*Ici les ...

3 Market structure

3.1 A highly concentrated market in France

The online advertising market is highly concentrated in France . Google, Facebook, and to a lesser extent, Amazon, are the undisputed leaders and trust the market

According to the **** report of the e-pub Observatory, produced by the Syndicat des Régies Internet (***) with PwC and Udecam, whose data are taken from The ...

3.2 The different types of online advertising

Within online advertising, there are various ways to implement it. We can mention in particular:

The search via search engines (***) The display programmatic or non-programmatic via banner ads, video ads, social media, classified ads Marketing Definitions indicates that" the programmatic purchase for digital display spaces is most often done by auction ...

3.3 Extremely variable prices

The price of online advertising varies considerably according to the type of product (***).

The Fabrique du net indicates that for an advertising banner, the economic cost is:

The CPM (***), each time the banner is displayed on a screen, a printout is counted Sales prices explain that in France, the average cost ...

4 Analysis of the offer

4.1 The video display in full expansion

The graphic below indicates the evolution of investment in online video advertising in France between **** and **** in millions of euros. Thus, this figure has risen from ** million in **** to *** million in ****

4.2 The threat of anti-advertising software

More and more consumers are complaining about the amount of advertising they encounter online and some systems have been developed to "block" some forms of online advertising

The online advertising market is therefore threatened by the use of blocking software, which is constantly increasing

The graphic below illustrates the proportion of ...

5 Rules and regulations

5.1 A recent and still weak regulation

In terms of regulation, online advertising is often praised for its advantage in accurately targeting consumers, which means that privacy legislation has a direct impact on the targeting methods of advertising agencies and advertisers

The Tribune explains that the empowerment of digital advertising professionals is the main challenge, in order to ...

6 Positioning of the actors

6.1 Segmentation

Market leaders :

Alphabet-Google Facebook Amazon

Market challengers:

Yahoo! Microsoft Advertising SoLocal Pinterest The Moneytizer Adverline Tradelab Adot Smart Criteo Local Media Mistral Media Andrea Media

List of charts

  • Taille de marché mondial de la publicité en ligne
  • Taille de marché national de la publicité en ligne
  • Parts de marché des différents segments dans le marché de la publicité en ligne
  • Taux de croissance par segment
  • How often the French buy online
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Latest news

Meta launches its first augmented reality headset! - 28/09/2023
  • The new Quest 3 virtual reality headset will be available from October 10.
  • The Quest 3 offers "mixed" reality, i.e. augmented reality, while its predecessor Quest 2, released in 2020, offers basic virtual reality.
  • Apple's Vision Pro headset, which also offers augmented reality, will be seven times more expensive than the Quest 3.
  • The Quest 3 will cost $500 for 128 gigabytes of storage (550 euros in France), while the Quest 2 is priced at $300 for 128 GB.
  • Meta has already sold some twenty million headsets, despite losses running into tens of billions of dollars for its Reality Labs division
  • Microsoft's cloud gaming platform will be available on the Quest from December.
  • Purchases of games and apps on the Quest Store have exceeded $2 billion.
With a new boss, Pinterest focuses more on e-commerce - 29/06/2022
  • The online image catalog had taken advantage of the health crisis to attract new users
  • Pinterest passes the $50 billion mark on the stock market
  • Pinterest counts 430 million users
  • Pinterest attempts to develop the purchase of goods through its platform.
  • In 2020, the platform launched a partnership with Shopify enabling users to purchase products they had discovered on Pinterest.
Pinterest aims to develop e-commerce - 07/07/2022
  • By 2022, Pinterest will have more than 400 million monthly users worldwide
  • Pinterest has a new CEO, Bill Ready, whose ambition is to develop e-commerce and turn its platform into a sales vehicle
  • Sellers can display the products they offer on the site
  • Using a pin system, Pinterest facilitates the purchase of products discovered by consumers on the site

Companies quoted in this study

This study contains a complete overview of the companies in the market, with the latest figures and news for each company. :

Meta (anciennement Facebook)
Solocal
Pinterest
Adverline
Tradelab Jellyfish (Fimalac Groupe)
Criteo
Local Media (Admoove)
LinkedIn
Twitter
Spotify
Deezer
Youtube

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