Report Says Online Advertising Continues to Grow

Internet advertising continued to grow at a healthy rate, according to a report by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers. The Internet Advertising Revenue report was released yesterday and said that overall Internet advertising revenues for 2005 totaled $12.5 billion, exceeding 2004 by 30 percent. In the fourth quarter of 2005 advertising revenues were $3.6 billion, a 34 percent increase from 2004 and a new record, according to the report.

"Interactive Advertising continues to experience tremendous growth as marketers experience its overall effectiveness in building brands and delivering online and offline sales," said IAB CEO Greg Stuart in a statement. "We are confident that this growth trend will continue as more marketers find Interactive to be an imperative and additional platforms including broadband video, gaming, iPTV and others continue to emerge as real opportunities."

The report showed gains in nearly all forms of Internet advertising including, search, classified, display and rich media. The only area to see a slight decline was sponsorship revenue, which was $627 million, down from $770 million in 2004.

A copy of the full report is available at http://www.iab.net/resources/ad_revenue.asp.