Economic strife is expected to lower this year's digital advertising spending growth rate to 7%, or around 26 billion baht, down from an 18% rise last year, according to the Digital Advertising Association Thailand (DAAT).
"Digital advertising spending is continuing to grow, but at a slower pace due to the impact of the economic downturn and inflation, which has caused more cautious spending," said Nongnoot Poungpong, head of brands strategy at Kantar Insight.
Speaking at an annual event entitled "DAAT Day 2022 Era of Effectiveness", she said Thailand's digital ad spending in the first half of the year was valued at 13 billion baht, while the second half is expected to slightly increase to 13.6 billion baht as the fourth quarter is the peak time for e-commerce spending.
The top five categories were motor vehicles (12%), non-alcoholic beverages (9%), communication (9%), skin care (9%), and dairy products and dairy substitute products (6%).
Retail stores and banks were ranked as the top spenders, as they were in 2021, while audio and visual electronic products grew by 241% and e-commerce business saw growth of 57%.
In terms of channels, Meta, which has merged Facebook with Instagram, still had a dominant share of 33%, followed by YouTube Ads with 15%, online video at 10%, other social media with 9%, while Line and TikTok Ads had shares of 6% and 3%, respectively.
Online video has grown continuously and has leapfrogged social media into third place.
Pacharee Permvongusawa, general manager of Publicis Media and a member of the DAAT committee, said video platforms have seen tremendous growth, mainly driven by TikTok and its 42 million users.
Ms Nongnoot said around 92% of Thai consumers watched video content, while 72% learned about products and services via that media, according to a 2020 MediaBrix study.
Rajsak Asawasupachai, managing director of IPG Mediabrands, said digital has become the route for firms to raise awareness among the mass market, instead of via traditional media.
Digital advertising objectives in 2022 were mainly about creating awareness and boosting customer engagement.
Paruj Daorai, president of DAAT, said the pandemic accelerated the process of digital transformation from 4-5 years to 2-3 years.
A total of 79% of Thais use the internet, for an average of nine hours per day and at an average mobile speed of 32 Mbps.
Around 94% of Thais aged over 13 have social media accounts and play games for 1.58 hours a day on average, while 16% of Thais aged 16-64 use e-commerce and a third of them have mobile banking.
