The European digital advertising market has surpassed the television advertising market in size, according to figures from industry body IAB Europe.

It estimates that the online market reached €36.2 billion in 2015, up 13 per cent on the year before, meaning it overtook the €33.3 billion European television market.

Ireland’s digital advertising market grew faster than all other European markets last year, with growth of 29 per cent coming in ahead of growth in the Bulgarian and Polish markets, where growth also exceeded 20 per cent.

The figures were released as part of IAB Europe’s AdEx Benchmark research. Some 20 of the markets included in the research showed double-digit growth in digital advertising for the second consecutive year.

Shining star

"In a challenging economic environment and flat media market, online advertising has been the shining star, keeping the European advertising market afloat and again in 2015 lifting it out of decline," said Eleni Marouli, a principal analyst at IHS Technology and author of the report.

Mobile and video ad revenues continue to drive growth in the digital market.

In Ireland, digital advertising revenues were already known to be higher than television advertising revenues last year, with some advertising agencies calculating that digital surpassed television advertising here in 2014.

While digital is now bigger than television in both Europe and China, in the US it is forecast to overtake the television ad market this year.