According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, Internet advertising revenues are up 18% in Q3 of 2012, hiting close to $9.3 billion in the U.S. See IAB press release.
Although TV advertising is still the biggest channel (42% spend), online advertising is crushing print ad spend (40% vs 10%), will it also take over TV spend in 2013? In the U.S., Google generates as much advertising revenue as all newspapers & magazines put together.
So what does all this mean? Well, with over 2 billion people online, globally, brands are following their target customers... online. Luckily, digital advertising methods, tools, channels and it's ROI measurement are developing at an extraordinary pace. Today, the biggest online channels are of course Google and Facebook but there is a plethora of new opportunities arising. Segmentation and targeted advertising are still in their early days as consumers learn how to choose brands they are receptive to, and brands learn how address their consumers at the right time, the right place and for the right reasons.
It is important for all organizations, that spend money on advertising, to adapt to these new trends and in an efficient manner. Many marketers and, even more worryingly, advertising agencies, are sill focusing too much on traditional channels. They are allocating disproportionate amounts of budget to traditional channels and often fail to adapt their ads to the digital channel. We still see banners that are merely a smaller version of the big billboard we walked past at the train station. Brands need to learn these new methods, adopt new tools and focus on measuring the impact of ads online. When appropriate, brands should try to be innovative when creating engaging ads. HERE are a couple of examples of the good digital ads for 2012.
Is your company breaking ground with online advertising?
