Online advertising continues to expand at a rapid pace eve with the continued recession affecting most markets around the world. The first quarter of this year has seen online advertising setting a new record at $8.4 billion, marking a 15% increase year on year according to a report by the Interactive Advertising Bureau at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
As more and more of the readership of traditional media such as newspapers and TV move online, the advertising money will continue to follow – and this is helped by improved delivery and platform technologies according to Sherrill Mane, SVP of research, analytics and measurement at the IAB. This growth rate may be a slight reduction on last years average of 22%, but the problems in Europe may well have had a toll on some of the established markets, but 15% demonstrates a resilient and developing industry.
The IAB have only been tracking mobile advertising since 2010 and after the explosion of mobile web usage with the release of the iPhone in 2009, but that sector grew an impressive 149% in 2011 to $1.6 billion increasing its share of online ad dollars from 2.5% to 5%.
Digital video advertising also saw strong growth, rising 29% to $1.8 billion in 2011 demonstrating the move of consumers from terrestrial television to watching on-demand through services such as Hulu and 4OD.
Search advertising grew even faster, rising 27% to $14.8 billion, maintaining its dominance in online ad spending taking in 46.5% of the ad dollars.
The biggest spender on digital advertising remains retails with $7.1 billion in 2011, followed by financial services ($4.1 billion), telecoms ($3.9 billion), automotive ($2.9 billion), leisure travel ($2.4 billion), and computing ($2.7 billion).
