IDC: US Internet Ad Spending to Boom

By Juan Carlos Perez

May 30, 2008 — IDG News Service —

Online advertising will balloon in the coming years, becoming bigger than all advertising media except direct marketing by 2012, according to IDC.

Spending in U.S. online advertising will double from US$25.5 billion in 2007 to $51.1 billion in 2012, along the way climbing up from the fifth-largest to the second-largest ad medium and dwarfing newspapers, cable and broadcast TV, IDC said Friday.

Overall spending in U.S. advertising is expected to decline by about 7 percent this year compared with 2007, which means that online advertising is fueling its growth with ad dollars previously destined for “old” media, said IDC analyst Karsten Weide.

“The big story here is that Internet advertising is growing strongly at the expense of traditional media,” Weide said. “Old media ad budgets are getting moved online.”