Online Advertising Set to Jump 20% in 2011

Bad job news, bad home sales news- sometimes it feels like the adage “there is no bottom” gets truer every day.

One area not experiencing the depression seen in other areas is sales of online advertising. 2010 was huge for this sector, with a 14.9% rise and $26 billion in sales. Sound encouraging? 2011 is set to be even more dramatic, with a 20.2% jump, to $31.3 billion in revenue. The trend doesn’t seem to be a one-trick fiscal pony, either, with gains predicted for the next few years, according to eMarketer.

While the gains forecasted were somewhat less impressive than this year’s expected 20% increase, 2012 is set to see pretty massive cheddar-flow in online ad sales as well. A 17.6% rise is expected in 2012, and revenues are predicted to jump 12% in 2013, 10.4% in 2014 and 8.8% in 2015- where spending is expected to be at $49.5 billion.

Media Life Magazine quoted principal analyst David Hallerman on why the expected gains are so significant:

…Hallerman says that the internet has become as fundamental as TV to advertisers, and that a couple different factors will play into the medium’s expected growth. “As consumers continue to increase their time spent online and as the resurgent economy continues to bolster ad budgets, we’re going to continue to see an influx of dollars toward the internet,” Hallerman said in a release. According to the forecast internet ad spending will account for 28 percent of total U.S. major media ad spending in 2015.