Online Advertising Is Booming
US online advertising spending will hit $9.1 billion this year : $1 billion more than its previous high in the year 2000, at the height of the dot-com boom.
According to eMarketer’s just released report, Ad Spending in the US, after the precipitous 15.8% drop in 2002 for US online ad spending, the path back has been more like Lance Armstrong cycling the Alps in the Tour de France’s steep and rapidly upwards. With a 20%-plus growth rate last year, and the same expected this year and next, eMarketer sees Internet ad spending surpassing $11 billion by the end of 2005.
“The interactive ad industry is growing, and broadband is the driver” says eMarketer’s Senior Analyst, David Hallerman, author of the report. “Our research shows that high-speed users spend more time and money online. With broadband usage reaching critical mass, companies are now investing more heavily in paid search and rich media advertising while spending less on other forms of media.”
Though paid search leads all media among marketers online, accounting for nearly 40% of online ad spending, eMarketer predicts that rich media will see increasingly high growth as more companies invest in online branding opportunities such as display ads.
