Online Ad Dollars Stay Hot

Internet advertising revenue growth is still hot, according to the latest stats about online ad dollars from The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Revenues rose by rose 34 percent in 2006 to $16.8 billion compared to 2005 annual tallies, which was the prior record at 30 percent growth ($12.5 billion) over revenues in 2004.

The IAB said 2006 Q4 revenues totaled just under $4.8 billion, making it the highest quarter ever reported. Fourth-quarter revenues for 2006 represent a 32 percent increase over the same period in 2005, and a 15 percent increase over Q3 of 2006, estimated at slightly under $4.2 billion.

PricewaterhouseCoopers director Peter Petrusky said all signs point to a steady increase in the level of spend by traditional advertisers moving more of their ad dollars to online media.

In case you haven’t heard, 2006 was also a good year for Internet advertising leader Google, which reported 2006 fourth quarter net profits totaling $1.03 billion, about 2.7 times more than its net profit of $372 million during the same quarter in 2005. It’s numbers like those that one-time leader Yahoo hopes to catch with the help of its recently upgraded advertising platform, code-named Panama.

The IAB and PricewaterhouseCoopers estimated the 2006 fourth quarter and full year online ad revenue figures by surveying and aggregating data from the top 15 online ad sellers. The results were then extrapolated to calculate the total estimated industry revenue figure.

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