By Ciara Cole, Account Coordinator
As the popularity of online advertising grows and revenues continue to soar, 90octane predicts an exciting year for those watching ad spend.
Just this past year, the internet (including mobile) surpassed newspapers in ad revenue, making them the number two ad medium behind television, according to Advertising Age. Over the next year, we expect this trend to continue as online ad spending grows and rebounds further from a low point in 2009 attributed to the recession. Jack Marshall of Click Z, using predictions by Zenith, reports that online ad spend worldwide will increase 14% year-to-year, and will be as high as $70.5 billion in 2011—or 15.2% of overall ad spending. And, apparently, that is a conservative estimate. GroupM foresees a 37% growth in ad spend thanks to digital spend, and predicts it to rake in $82 billion in revenue.
As internet advertising continues to provide new and innovative approaches to their online promotions, products and services, online marketers are recognizing new and exciting opportunities. The expanding presence of businesses in social networking spaces, such as Facebook and Twitter, have created a more interactive platform for advertising, allowing consumers to communicate more directly with businesses than ever before. As a result, companies are investing much more heavily in their online and social media marketing arenas. As the Atlanta Businesss Chronicle notes, it isn’t a question of “if” a company should pursue a social advertising initiative, but rather how extensive it should be and how quickly the business should enact its strategy.
Ad spend is also surging abroad as large international markets continue to expand. Warc reports that online ad spend in China climbed by over 50% in last year alone. These numbers have pushed Chinese search engines Baidu, Sohu and Sina to pour money into their online ad spend and revenue boosting innovations. What’s more, this rising trend may suggest that search giants like Google and Bing are not the only large search engine players recognizing the rising revenue in online advertising.
As ad spend and ad revenue continue to grow this the year, it will be interesting to see how ad creativity, advancements and improvements follow suit.
