US online advertising revenue increased by more than 40% in the first three months of 2003, according to a poll carried out by the Online Publishers Association (OPA).
The survey of 24 OPA members showed that, among these companies, ad revenue in the first quarter grew an average of 40.7% over Q1 2002. Moreover, total revenue among this group was up an average of 37.6% over the same period last year.
“The strong ad revenue growth of OPA member companies provides further proof that advertisers are directing their spending toward high-quality content sites,” said Michael Zimbalist, executive director of the Online Publishers Association. “In this respect, the Internet is no different than traditional media: Context matters.”
The latest figures indicate a change in fortune for the online ad industry, which experienced a second successive annual decline in 2002 (see US Online Adspend Drops 17% In 2002). The dot com crash and the state of the general advertising market have affected confidence in the internet and at the start of this year, single figure growth seemed the most likely prognosis (see US Online Advertising Forecasts From eMarketer).
However, studies have shown that large, traditional advertisers have a new found faith in the web and are devoting a greater proportion of their budgets to online campaigns (see Traditional Advertisers Turn To The Web). They have been encouraged by a recent OPA report which concluded that marketers would be well advised to target affluent internet users by day in the workplace (see Advertisers Eye At-Work Surfers).
