Internet advertising and search engine marketing revenues continue to skyrocket, breaking new records as business professionals around the United States flocked online to leverage the most popular channel within the advertising world. According to a recent report prepared by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, total internet advertising revenues reached $42.8 Billion, representing a 17% increase over the year 2012.

This growth is fueled by the significant growth in mobile marketing platforms: in 2012, revenue generated from mobiles ads only represented 9% of all online advertising revenue, whereas it accounted for 17% of the total pie in 2013. This number will only continue to grow in 2014 as more businesses leverage the popularity of both mobile and social media platforms for paid advertising campaigns. The rapid growth of mobile advertising can also be attributed to the quick adoption rates of both smartphones and tablets, giving brands opportunities to advertiser to users both ubiquitously and across multiple devices consistently.

Revenue from search engine marketing also increased by 9% in 2013, reaching $18.4 Billion and representing nearly half (43%) of all online advertising revenues. Search engine marketing is a critical component for businesses to generate brand awareness, traffic, and conversions, which is why advertising professionals are becoming more savvy and increasing budgets on platforms such as Google Adwords and Bing Ads. In fact, adding a pay per click search advertising campaign to complement your search engine optimization activities can prove to be quite effective, as recent research indicates that click-through rates can increase for brands that utilize both forms of online marketing.

Revenue generated from display-related media also increased by 7% during 2013, representing a small but sufficient growth for display advertisers. Rich media and digital video commercials were the two forms of display media that saw sizable increases in total revenues generated, which makes sense considering interactive advertising tends to elicit better engagement rates from users compared to traditional banner ads. However, banner advertising grew as well, most likely due to the increase in use of retargeting platforms that allow advertiser to recapture targeted and pertinent traffic.

However, the most important piece of data that can be extracted from this report is the fact that interactive advertising revenues surpassed broadcast television advertising revenues ($40.1 Billion) for the first time in history, exhibiting the power of online marketing and the allure this channel of marketing has for both businesses and consumers alike. With a growing audience searching for products & services online and communicating with peers on social media platforms, it’s important for businesses to cement Internet advertising space before it becomes too late…or too cluttered.

Has your brand invested in generating a significant online presence? If not, you may be missing out on new potential streams of revenue.

Featured Image Source: Thinkstock
Article Image Source: Thinkstock
Source of Stats: Interactive Advertising Bureau