Revenue drawn from internet advertising increased to nearly $15 billion in the second quarter of 2011, as display and search advertising have generated substantial gains for businesses, a report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Interactive Advertising Bureau said.
Search marketing has been especially strong in terms of growth. According to the report, search campaigns drew more than $7 billion in revenue after earning more than $5 billion during the same period last year. This correlates with Brafton’s earlier report that more consumers are regularly searching the web, which speaks to the need for not only paid search campaigns, but also SEO and content marketing initiatives to drive search engine presence.
“The remarkably resilient performance of interactive advertising so far in 2011 demonstrates that more marketers are placing big bets on digital to tell their brand stories,” Randall Rothenberg, president and CEO of IAB, said in a release. “This welcome news, in light of the weakness in a large part of the rest of the U.S. economy, confirms that the innovations happening in interactive marketing deliver great value to the industry and to the consumer.”