In 2013, Chancellor Angela Merkel called the internet an “uncharted territory,” earning widespread mockery and going viral in the process. More than a decade later, the role of the internet in Germany’s advertising market remains modest and its development lags behind. In spite of making it into the top five
lay at around 13 percent in Germany in 2021, compared to more than 50 percent in mature digital markets such as China, Canada, or the United Kingdom. Trends show that German advertisers still rely heavily on television and even spend more on newspaper ads than they do on their online equivalents. Germany is also among the slowest-growing
, with a growth rate of roughly a fifth of the European average and a mere fraction of growth leader Turkey.
Mobile: meet the customers where they are
By sheer expenditure, Germany was one of the
largest mobile ad markets worldwide in 2022. However, German brands tend to trust desktop ads more than mobile ads, investing only a third of digital ad spending in mobile platforms, compared to the global average of 62 percent. This trend seems especially surprising when considering that smartphones are the devices of choice for Germans when it comes to online shopping. Market research shows that advertisers aiming to influence purchase decisions of German mobile buyers are best served by products of such
publishers as Ströer Digital, BurdaForward, and eBay Classifieds Group - each reaching well over 30 million people or 40 to 50 percent of the country’s population.
Programmatic: an untapped potential
Unsurprisingly, also in terms of
programmatic spending, Germany belonged to the global top five in 2021, behind the United States, China, the United Kingdom, and Japan. However, the difference between what the leader of the ranking and Germany spent is staggering. While the size of the U.S. programmatic market was estimated at 222 billion U.S. dollars in 2023, Germany’s lay at around 13.2 billion. The value is expected to increase but the
growth will slow down from an already moderate 10 percent to six percent in 2028. Advertisers do not seem to lend this type of ad buying much attention, which leads to relatively stable
programmatic ad prices (CPM), while
ad impressions show slow but steady growth.
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