The US IAB released its half yearly trend figures on Friday which were very good reading for anyone in search marketing. In the first half of 2012 Internet ad spend in the US grew by a remarkable 14% YoY topping 17 Billion for the first time. This is great news for all digital marketers as more budget comes across from the traditional offline channels.
This is even more impressive in the chart below which shows the rapid growth of Internet ad spend since 1996.
Other highlights from the report
- Retail is the major spender with 20% of the total spend at $3.4 billion
- Display only grew by 4%
The key winners were search which grew by 19%, Digital Video by 18% and mobile which grew by a whopping 95%.
However Mobile is still a very small channel when compared to banner ads and search which continue to dominate the landscape.
So what does this mean for you?
Well in my opinion there has never been a better time to be in digital marketing. The recession has focused the marketing industry on being more measurable and that plays right into our hands. Coupled with the fact that search is the major player in digital being a search marketer seems like a great place to be!
