Online advertising revenue in the US is up 10.5% for the
first six months of 2003, totalling $3.29bn, compared with the
$2.97bn booked in the first six months of 2002, according to a
study released yesterday by the Interactive Advertising Bureau
(IAB) and auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.
The figures show that online ad revenue for the second quarter
of 2003 totalled $1.66bn, a 13.9% increase over same period last
year. Actual first-quarter online ad revenue fell slightly to
$1.63bn, down from an earlier estimate of $1.69bn. Second-quarter
revenue increased by 1.7% over the first-quarter figure.
IAB president and chief executive officer Greg Stuart said
"revenue figures mirror the reality of the marketplace", which has
been growing.
"Our prognosis for a continued and steady recovery is being
realised, and the outlook remains bright," he added. "With internet
usage and broadband adoption continuing to escalate, marketers are
throwing their weight and dollars behind interactive
advertising."
Pete Petrusky, director of new media at PricewaterhouseCoopers,
said the latest figures show that the industry is "still working
its way through to find the best ad formats that are going to bring
in the most eyeballs".
The first online ads in the late 1990s were banner ads, which
transformed into pop-up ads and are now being replaced by keyword
searches, where online search engines generate results for users
based on fees paid by advertisers for better listing positions. Ads
in the future are likely to have new formats.
One key to increased online advertising will be a higher
adoption rate for broadband internet access, Petrusky said. With an
estimated 18 million to 22 million homes using broadband today,
industry estimates show that a surge in new advertising will likely
occur as broadband use hits the 30 million homes mark.
"I do think that this industry is poised for another significant
growth phase when they hit that critical mass point" in the next
year or two, Petrusky said.
The latest ad revenue figures "strongly suggest the industry has
rebounded, reflecting improving fundamentals, [including] fewer
non-cash deals and continued investment from the largest buyer
segment, consumer advertisers, [that] bode well for the industry as
a whole," he added.
Baroudi and Associates analyst Carol Baroudi said the ad revenue
figures are a mixed bag. "The good news is that somebody's spending
money" in what has been a tough economic period, while the bad news
is that online ads are often "horrific for the user" because of
spam and unwanted pop-up ads.
"It's making a great market for the anti-advertising software"
companies, which offer software to stop pop-ups and spam, she
added.
The largest amount of online ad revenue in the first half of the
year came from keyword searches, where advertisers pay search
engine companies such as Google and Yahoo to list their websites
higher in results presented to users as they do online
searches.
Online search ad revenue comprised 31% of total ad revenues for
the second quarter of 2003, more than triple the 9% it brought in a
year earlier.
Banner ad revenue is down to 22% of total revenue, from 32 % a
year earlier, while multimedia ad revenue is up to 6% from 3%. One
reason for the lower banner ad revenue, according to an IAB
spokeswoman, is that many long-term banner ad contracts signed in
the late 1990s at the height of the banner ad explosion have been
expiring.
Most online advertising came from consumer products advertisers,
who provided 44% of the total ad revenue for the first half of the
year.
Todd R Weiss writes for Computerworld