Online ad revenue in the United States grew to $42.8 billion in 2013, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Internet Advertising Revenue Report. That’s up 17 percent from 2012, and it means that for the first time, the total is higher than broadcast TV, which was at $40.1 billion.
“The news that interactive has outperformed broadcast television should come as no surprise,” said IAB President and CEO Randall Rothenberg in the report release. “It speaks to the power that digital screens have in reaching and engaging audiences.”
The reason that they keep saying “broadcast TV”, of course, is because online ads still fall well below total TV ad spending.
Breaking things down by ad format, the report says that mobile advertising grew to $7.1 billion, marking its third year of greater-than-100-percent growth (110 percent, in this case). Display ad revenue grew 7 percent to $12.8 billion. Video, which the report counts as part of display, grew 19 percent to $2.8 billion. Search grew 9 percent to $18.4 billion. And int terms of advertiser category, retail advertisers accounted for 21 percent of spending, followed by financial services (13 percent) and automotive (12 percent).
The report also includes the IAB’s numbers for the fourth quarter of 2013, which came in at $12.1 billion total, up 17 percent year-over-year.
The Internet Advertising Revenue Report was prepared for the IAB by PricewaterhouseCoopers. You can read the release summarizing the data here and read the full report here.