It may seem like forever, but not more than 20 years ago, digital advertising was basically unheard of. There were no display ads, no SEO tactics, no social posts, and especially no mobile advertising. Everything that you have ever seen in digital advertising in the broad scheme of things is new. It is all young, meaning it is all still being experimented with and it is hard to really be sure how results will turn out. However, that has not stopped the digital marketing world from reaching an incredibly mark just the other day. Online advertising has reached a record high, and it only took a few years to do it.
Yet again, eMarketer provides us with some information that cannot be ignored. For the first time ever in history, online advertising has surpassed the $100 billion ad spending mark in 2012. That is a number that holds quite a bit of weight with it, and shows just how successful online advertising is becoming. According to eMarketer though, this is still only the beginning, and online advertising has a long way to go in terms of reaching its actual highest point.
The growth is expected to go like this:
Total Worldwide Ad Spend 2012-2016
2012: $102.83 billion
2013: $118.40 billion
2014: $134.65 billion
2015: $149.18 billion
2016: $163.04 billion
As of right now, North America accounts for the majority of all online ad spending, with 39% of the total in the end of 2012. This comes from the constant innovation that we have seen in some of the country’s most popular forms of marketing, and growth in North America will continue to thrive.
As of right now, digital ad spending accounts for about 1 in 5 of all ad dollars that are spent in the world, and that number will only increase as the world continues its digital transformation. By 2016, eMarketer expects that digital ad spending will well surpass one quarter of all ad spending, and a decrease does not seem likely in the near future.
So, how does this affect any given individual brand or business? Well, it really does not directly pertain to any business, but it shows the unrelenting growth in the industry, and how successful digital marketing can be. It shows how important it is becoming to have some sort of digital presence in the world, and how much more important it will become. If everyone else is doing it and you aren’t, it must mean that there is something you are missing.
For online advertising to reach such a high level in such a short period of time is incredible, and cannot be overlooked. The things that are made possible with digital marketing are more than anyone could have imagined 20 years ago. North America along with the rest of the world have experienced a huge change in the way consumers are reached, and the numbers are looking good.
