Online advertising spending in the U.S. continued to accelerate in the third quarter, as the market rebounds from a slowdown last year.
Marketers spent US$6.4 billion in online ads, up 17 percent year-on-year and the highest quarterly total ever, the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers said on Wednesday.
Online ad spending has been gaining speed in the U.S. this year, having grown 11.3 percent to $12.1 billion in the first quarter and on track to making 2010 the best year so far on record.
Last year, economic uncertainty and troubles led marketers to cut down on online advertising and spending shrunk 3 percent to $22.7 billion.
The market has been helped in large part by the fact that marketers are allocating a bigger share of their total advertising budgets to online media, according to the IAB and PwC.
“Advertisers are shifting more of their brand messaging online, accounting for this welcome surge in a difficult economy,” said David Silverman, a partner at PwC. “This trend reflects the accelerating shift in consumer behavior towards the internet and away from traditional media.”