U.S. online video advertising is likely to be one of only two bright spots in what otherwise will be a down online ad year, eMarketer says. The company says online advertising will be down some 4.6 percent for the year -- the first decline in online ad spending since 2002 -- but that online video and search ad spending likely will finish with better numbers than in 2008.
The company said online video spending would be up more than $295 million for 2009 to $1.03 billion, an increase of just over 40 percent. Still, the latest projection is a downgrade from eMarketer's outlook it published in October, when it forecast video online ad spend to increase 42.6 percent online ad spend as overall online ad purchases declined 2.9 percent to $22.8 billion in the United States.
eMarketer senior analyst David Hallerman said that, despite the revised numbers, the worst may be over for the industry.
"The economic cycle has reached bottom-at least for the online ad industry," he said. "US Ad Spending." "While spending in the first three quarters of 2009 fell by 5.3 percent, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers, eMarketer's estimates indicate a smaller loss during Q4, of 2.5 percent."
And, he projected a strong recovery with 2010 and 2011 seeing increases of 5.9 percent and 6.6 percent respectively. "The recession has laid bare the structural changes that have been transforming most ad-supported media," said Hallerman. "The blend of economic, societal and technological trends is not over, although total media spending will rise again starting in 2011."
Online growth surged 126.5 percent in 2008 to $734 million; it's expected to continue growing from 34 percent to 45 percent per year trough 2014 when eMarketer projects $5.2 billion in revenue from online video ad spending.
For more:
- see this eMarketer report
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