Internet advertising hit a new high in the third quarter as marketers continued to shift money from print and broadcasting.
The
$9.3 billion spent on Internet ads from July through September is an 18
percent increase from $7.8 billion at the same time last year,
according to a breakdown released Wednesday by the accounting firm
PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Internet Advertising Bureau, a trade
group.
The third-quarter total marks the highest ad volume for any
three-month period since 1995, when online marketing first began to
move to the Web. Another record is expected in the current quarter
ending this month.
Internet advertising more than doubles the
amount in U.S. newspapers' print advertising, which totaled $4.5 billion
in the third quarter, according to the industry's own figures.
The
upheaval has been driven by the growing number of people who rely on
computers and mobile devices to get information on the Internet.
The increasing number of Internet ads helps subsidize many free online services, including search, email and social networking.
Google
Inc., the Internet's search leader, has been the biggest beneficiary of
the online ad boom so far. Other major sellers of online ads include
Yahoo Inc., Facebook Inc., Microsoft Corp. and AOL Inc.
Despite
its steady growth, the Internet still lags well behind television as the
most popular marketing machine. Through the first half of this year,
U.S television advertising revenue approached nearly $35 billion, up 6
percent from last year, according the most recent data from the trade
group TVB.
TV stations enjoyed another prosperous period in the
third quarter as money poured in from political campaigns heading into
November's elections.