Social media delivering for Australian organisations, analysts find

More Australian organisations are seeing a positive return on investment from social media-based advertising, according to Frost & Sullivan.

A new report from the analyst firm on the online advertising market found that 72 per cent of Australian organisations that employed social media channels in 2014 reported a positive ROI.

This compares to 63 per cent or organisations in 2013.

Frost & Sullivan is predicting that, overall, the Australian online advertising market will hit $2.426 billion by 2018.

That would represent a compound annual growth rate of 16 per cent. The market was worth $1.15 billion in 2014.

Online video is the fastest growing type of online general advertising inventory according to Australian Online General and Mobile Advertising Market 2014. Video grew 60 per cent in 2013/14 and and now represents 17 per cent of online general ad spend, according to Frost & Sullivan.

The analyst firm is also predicting strong growth for mobile advertising in Australia over the next half decade. It will be driven "by strong growth in consumer media consumption on both smartphones and tablets, and better targeting capabilities by online publishers and mobile ad networks," said Phil Harpur, senior research manager, Frost & Sullivan Australia & New Zealand, in a statement.

Frost and Sullivan is forecasting the mobile advertising market will hit $900 million by 2019, with tablets accounting for 70 per cent of spending.

"Mobile advertising is increasingly being seen as an important part of the overall advertising strategy of both media agencies and brands," Harpur said.

"Mobile ad networks will need to continually evolve their business models, or their proprietary technology platforms will be superseded by the open nature and technology efficiencies of ad exchanges."