Despite the current state of the economy, eMarketer predicts that spending on online advertising in the U.S. will continue to grow.

Ryan Moss
Research Analyst

The struggling economy has been affecting many different areas in the marketing/advertising world, however online advertising is not expected to be significantly affected by the economic downturn. According to eMarketer, online advertising spending will increase by 23% during 2008. If eMarketer’s predictions are correct, online advertising will remain as the fastest-growing media in terms of ad spending. Experts attribute online advertising’s continued growth to the fact that it is very easy to measure online ad success, and to target ads to any desired market. These two qualities are what matters most to marketers.

In the online advertising industry, search is expected to account for the highest percentage of spending (40%) during 2008. However during the next four years experts believe that percentage will decrease, losing share of ad spend to rich media/video which is expected to grow significantly between now and 2012. See the chart below for a complete breakdown of U.S. online advertising spending by format.