U.S. advertisers spend $9B on display ads

As more consumers head online, so do marketers. According to a report from TNS Media Intelligence, growth in online display ads and political ads showed the most growth in 2006.

by Kristina Knight

According to the report, online display ad buys increased by more than 17% in 2006. That is a boost to $9.76 billion, an increase of more than $1 billion from 2005 numbers. Still, online display ads only represent about 6% of the total ad spend. Overall, advertising spending grew about 4%, to $149.6 billion, in 2006.

On average, the biggest Internet spenders allocated about 15% of their advertising budget for online ads. That is about twice the amount of money that other advertisers spent. Financial services and media are the largest spending categories at 13%, followed by pharmaceuticals at 3% and restaurants at 0.9%.

“Total advertising expenditures continue to expand slowly. Excluding the cyclical contributions from special events such as political elections and the Olympics, core growth is tracking in the range of 3 percent,” said Steven Fredericks, president and CEO of TNS Media Intelligence.

Political advertising did show incredible growth in 2006. Political ads brought in $17.23 billion, an increase of more than 10% over 2005 advertising levels and 20% over Q4 2005 levels. Q4 2006 included the final five weeks of advertising efforts for candidates and causes.