Internet search ad spending is growing even more now than before, with a survey by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PriceWaterhouse Coopers saying such spending is coming up toward $1 billion a quarter with advertisers spending 40 percent of their online ad budgets on search ads between April and June.
Those numbers, the IAB and PriceWaterhouse said, eclipse the $481 million search ad revenues and 29 percent of online ad budget spending seen in the second quarter of 2003.
Total search spending between April and June reached $974 million, compared to online display ad spending reaching $474 million (up from $382 million in April-June 2003), online classified ad spending at $403 million (up from $282 million a year earlier), online sponsorship spending at $213 million ($199 million in April-June 2003), rich media spending at $189 million ($149 million a year earlier), and e-mail ad spending at $47 million ($17 million a year earlier).
"Not surprisingly, search continues its popularity,” said PriceWaterhouse new media director Pete Petrusky, announcing the IAB/PriceWaterhouse findings, “and it's been embraced by advertisers due to its innate relevancy, the simplicity of the results, and because advertisers can determine more precise response rates."
The IAB said advertisers spent $2.37 billion on Internet advertising overall between April and June, a 43 percent hike over the same 2003 period and up from $2.27 billion spent on Net ads between January and March.
And some of the biggest advertisers in cyberspace are fattening their online ad spending, particularly broadband/Internet telephony provider Vonage and the Lincoln-Mercury division of Ford, spending 50 and 25 percent, respectively, of their ad budgets on the Internet, according to IAB president Greg Stuart.
"Internet advertising is without question taking share from the other media at this time and for good reason--marketers have figured out that online advertising is often the most cost-effective medium for influencing both branding and sales results," Stuart said in his own statement.
But while search ad spending rules the roost for now, Internet advertising overall will continue evolving, according to PriceWaterhouse New Media Group chairman Tom Hyland, especially with broadband beginning “to reach critical mass in the home,” prompting a growing number of traditional advertisers to move toward a stronger cyberspace ad presence, because “it provides a better platform for more compelling media ads and video formats.”
