Internet advertising

Since the professor talked about display advertising, I thought this will be interesting to post. I came across a very recent report in the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) about the continuing significant increase in the internet advertising revenues. According to IAB, internet advertising revenues in the US jumped to an all-time high of $17 billion in the first half of 2012, an indication of the increasing importance of internet as a marketing platform and a driver of the US economy. This $17 billion in internet ad revenue reflects an increase of 14% from the same period in 2011.

What is interesting is that of the $17 billion, internet search is still responsible for almost 50% of the revenue and display-related advertising amounting to roughly 33%. It appears that search will continue grow and will likely remain the largest kind of online advertising for the foreseeable future. The mobile market is still small, but is growing extremely rapidly; the revenue growth was 95% in the mobile market, but of course the comparison base is much smaller. On the display advertising segment, digital video advertising is certainly growing fast. It appears that companies are increasingly embracing mobile and digital video to reach consumers. These numbers confirms that even in this slowly recovering economy, internet marketing manages to post a solid double-digit growth.

On the same note, Harvard Business School published a recent study on how advertising-supported internet ecosystem is helping the U.S economy by creating more jobs. According to HBS' estimate, the total employment due to the internet ecosystem grew two folds from 2.5 million to 5 million in 4 years, specifically during the recent 'Great recession'. I find this interesting since what we are learning in class is not only important for us as marketers, but also a proof for how important the contribution of advertising on the internet is to the internet ecosystem and to the overall US economy.