Online advertising in the United States jumped 33 percent last year, hitting a record $9.6 billion and passing the levels of the early dot-com boom, according to an Interactive Advertising Bureau report with PricewaterhouseCoopers that adds that the growth is likely to be comparable this year.
"Interactive advertising has clearly become a mainstream medium,” said IAB chief executive Greg Stuart, announcing the findings at the end of last week, “and one that can no longer be ignored as a critical piece of any marketing mix. The PwC 2004 reported figures indicate that interactive is firing on all cylinders including display, search, and classifieds and is squarely on track to surpass consumer magazine revenues.”
Consumer advertisers remained the largest online advertiser group at 49 percent of the total 2004 revenues, the IAB/PwC findings said, a jump from the 37 percent of 2003. The largest subcategories included retail, leisure, entertainment, automotive, and packaged goods, the report continued.
PwC partner Tom Hyland said the rise in broadband adoption was a major factor. “The increased adoption of broadband will continue to evolve the face of interactive advertising as more compelling media ads and video formats are created,” he said at the report’s release. “More and more, brand marketers will look to interactive as an integral platform to deliver rich experiences for brand building and enhancement.”
PwC director of advisory services Pete Petrusky said the 2004 revenues confirm a “very healthy environment” for Internet advertising, “for both direct marketers seeking immediate performance results, as well as brand advertisers looking to create or enhance an image, product, or service. Moreover, the Internet is the only medium to adopt a global standard for impression measurement, intended to simplify the buying and selling process for online advertising.”
Computing was the second largest group of online advertisers behind consumer advertisers, holding 18 percent of the total 2004 revenues, according to the IAB/PwC report, followed by financial services (17 percent), pharmaceutical and health care services (6 percent), and telecommunications (4 percent).
