Smartphone video was the fastest growing Advertising format in a market increasingly being dominated by mobile, according to research from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) UK and PwC.

This data point is best illustrated with the news smartphones overtook computers for time spent on the internet for the first time ever. With this, smartphone advertising grew 37.4% to account for 45% of all digital ad Spend.

The fastest growing medium was smartphone video. It was up by 69% in 2017, bringing the tally to £1.17bn. Video was an increasingly important part of all smartphone advertising which grew by 37.4% to £5.2bn.

Furthermore, smartphones made up 73% of all video spend which came to £1.61bn across mobile, computers and tablets.

Social media spend was on the up too, by 38% to £2.39bn, roughly a fifth of every pound spend in digital. Four fifths of all the budget were directed towards mobile.

Programmatic advertising continued to swell too. 80% of spend on display ads was traded programmatically, an 8% rise on 2016.

Tom Tryon, strategy manager at PwC, said: “While this data relates to 2017, before some of the recent headlines that have been dominating the industry, it’s clear that there has been considerable momentum in the market.

“What stands out to us is the number of success stories we've seen across a diverse range of formats, from audio to sponsored content, and across all parts of the industry value chain. More than half of the companies submitting to the study this year are in growth, which points to a robust and competitive marketplace.”

All in, the research found that 2017 saw a 14.3% increase in digital ad spend, bringing the tally to a neat £11.55bn.