It’s official: online has overtaken TV as an advertising medium. According to the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), ad spending online grew to £1.75bn in the first half of this year while TV dipped to £1.64bn.

But the TV vs online dichotomy isn’t a particularly helpful one and the headline figures only tell part of the story. Anyone who has ever been on the internet can tell you that online advertising is actually pretty underwhelming - and research and measurement have played their part in making it that way. As a result, many brand advertisers remain wary of the web because it’s so difficult to prove ROI. Most of the £1.75bn online total comes from search and classified ads, and the £316.5m made up by display was down 5% year-on-year. Video, although growing rapidly, still only accounted for about £12m - less than 1% of the online total.