It’s time to display our wares
Display advertising appears on the Internet, as a form of Internet marketing. It appears on web pages in many forms, including web banners. These banners can consist of static or animated images, as well as interactive media that may include audio and video elements. Adobe Systems Flash or .gif are the preferred presentation formats for such interactive advertisements. Yahoo currently has the largest share of the U.S. market in online display advertising. As of February 28th, 2011 display advertising is a $17 billion business globally.
Until now small businesses have not really used display on the net to a large degree as display advertising on the Internet is widely used for branding. This is why metrics like interaction time are becoming more relevant. However, this may change in the future as display advertising is becoming much more targeted to users, much like how search engine ads can be extremely relevant users based on what they are searching for.
In fact, a surge in display advertising has prompted eMarketer to nearly double its ad growth prediction for 2011.
The researcher had predicted the market would grow 10.5%, but now it expects a 20.2% rise and projects that display will overtake search as the largest online ad spending category by 2015.
That increase, to $31 billion, compares to $26 billion in 2010, when the market grew 14.9%. In a statement, David Hallerman, principal analyst at eMarketer, said the increased importance of online as a channel and the variety of online ad formats are fueling the growth.
In particular, display advertising has exceeded 2011 spending projections. This year such advertising will rise 24.5% to $12.3 billion, according to eMarketer. Meanwhile, search advertising is expected to grow 19.8%, to $14.4 billion. Marketers’ increased use of Internet advertising as a branding vehicle — rather than for direct sales — will prompt faster growth in display, eMarketer projects.
Overall, eMarketer predicts Internet advertising will account for 20% of the total market, up from 17% in 2010. By 2015, such advertising will account for 28% of all U.S. ad spending.
The findings jibe with recent figures reported by the IAB that showed a 23% jump in Internet advertising revenues for the first quarter. IAB didn’t break out display advertising spending for the first quarter. A report by IDC also found that display was growing faster than search in the first quarter.