Kelsey Group: Interactive ad revenues to reach $147 billion

A new forecast from the Kelsey Group predicts that interactive advertising isn't going to slow down any time soon.

by Kristina Knight

According to the forecast, global directional ad revenues will reach $41 billion. This includes local search, print and yellow pages advertising. Entire ad revenues are expected to surpass $700 billion globally by 2012.

"The global advertising industry is experiencing a full-scale shift to mixed-media platforms, with interactive driving a significant share of overall industry growth,” said Matt Booth, senior vice president, Interactive Local Media, The Kelsey Group. “We see Internet development—including increased subscriber/user access and broadband penetration—as a driver of both interactive advertising revenue as well as migration of traditional ad spending to new media platforms.”

The interactive portion of the ad spend is expected to account for more than 20% of the global ad spend by 2012.

In the US, interactive advertising revenue is expected to jump from $22.5 billion (in 2007) to more than $62 billion (in 2012). In Canada, interactive ad revenue is expected to nearly triple, rising from $1.3 billion (in 2007) to $3.3 billion (in 2012).

Meanwhile directional advertising is expected to grow from $33 billion in 2007 to more than $41 billion by 2012. Local search is expected to account for $6.6 billion, print yellow pages are expected to account for $25 billion and Internet yellow pages are expected to account for $9.2 billion.