Online ad spending defies slowdown

The US may be about to slide into recession – if it’s not there already – but that isn’t going to stop the online spend there growing by a healthy 23% this year, according to eMarketer research reported by MediaWeek.

The 23% growth rate is slightly slower than in recent years, but will still see the total spending on online advertising grow to $US25.9 billion in an economy where spending on old media advertising is forecast to grow by just 3.3%.

“Several elements unique to the internet will support continued US ad spending growth, even if other media falter,” said David Hallerman, senior analyst at eMarketer. “The greater ability to measure ads online will likely encourage marketers with reduced budgets. Those same marketers are finding that the audiences they need to target are spending more of their media time on the web.”

And a new report by Juniper Research predicts that mobile phone search ad revenue is also set to move ahead strongly over the next few years.

InformationWeek reports that the mobile ad spend is set to reach $US4.8 million by 2013, with local search – people searching for information about goods and services in there local area – to command a 40% share, much higher than the internet generally.