A survey released last week says that sales of Internet advertising
went up 33 percent, to $9.6 billion, when comparing 2003 to 2004, and
that the total exceeded the previous high-water mark set in 2000 by
almost 20 percent.
Further, the last quarter of 2004 had more Internet advertising
revenue than any quarter ever, coming in at $2.7 billion.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau of New York City and its
accounting and survey firm PricewaterhouseCoopers said on Thursday that
all categories of Internet advertising -- search, classified, display
and rich media -- "continue to grow at a healthy rate."
Display advertising -- a category that includes regular display,
sponsorships, slotting fees and rich media -- lost 15 percent of the
total Internet ad market in 2004, down from 44 percent to 39 percent
(though total category revenue grew by 17.4 percent, to $3.8 billion).
The big gainer was search-based advertising, which went up from 35
percent of the total market in 2003 to 40 percent in 2004, with total
sales of $3.9 billion, up 51.4 percent over the year before.
On-line classified ad revenue kept roughly the same percentage of
the overall Internet ad spending, coming in this year at 18 percent of
the total, or $1.7 billion. Referrals picked up one percent point,
coming it at two percent of the total, at $193 million.
Losing two points was e-mail advertising, down to one percent of
the total spending, at $96 million.
The report also showed that Internet ads continue to reduce their
reliance on computer advertising and that consumer advertising
continues to take the largest share of the pie. Consumer ads took in 49
cents of every Internet ad dollar last year, up from the 37 cents of
2003, while computing dropped from 20 percent to 18 percent.
Financial service ads increased five percent, to 17 percent of the
total, while pharmaceuticals and health care went up two percentage
points, to six percent, and telecommunications held steady at four
percent.
Greg Stuart, the president and chief executive of the IAB, said
that Internet advertising is "squarely on track to surpass
consumer magazine revenues." Next stop will undoubtedly be to
surpass daily newspaper revenue.
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