Advertisers in the United States spent $8.4 billion in the first three months of 2012, the best first quarter in the history of internet ad sales.

According to a joint report released by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) internet ad sales rose by $1.1 billion compared to Q1, 2011 an increase of 15% year-over-year. While the growth rate is less than the 24% jump from Q1 2010 through Q1 2011 ad sales were competing against stronger overall sales on an annual basis.

Ad sales continue to increase in the social media space where $10 billion is expected to be generated in 2013. Sales are also being helped along in the mobile space where $5 billion is already being spent with one-third of that money going to the Asia-Pacific region.

In the meantime analysts are predicting double-digit ad growth numbers in the U.S. through 2014.

In the meantime not all website owners are expected to benefit from the transition, A Pew report has found that news publishers will capture fewer dollars unless they begin to hyper-target users to provide better ad results. According to the report digital advertising for newspapers, specifically legacy papers grew just 1% during Q1 2012.

The report does not take into account how advertisers may shift some of their attention away from social network, specifically in the case of Facebook where click-through rates (CTR) have been seen as some of the worst in the social networking industry.

Are you surprised by the increasing amount of ad revenue being dropped into the internet space year-over-year?

[via AdAge]

US Online Advertising Sets New Record In Q1 2012 is a post from: The Inquisitr