IAB: Mobile Ad Revenue Nearly Doubles While Interactive Spend Overall Reaches Record $17B

Mobile advertising grew 95% from the first half of 2011 to the same period in 2012, though the sector still only represented $1.2 billion in revenues, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau and Pricewaterhouse Coopers, which jointly release revenue figures for the industry every quarter.

The industry as a whole grew to an all-time high of $17 billion in revenues in the first half, a 14% increase year-over-year.

Another sector making big strides in the first half of 2012 is digital video, which is a component of display advertising. Digital video grew 18% year-over-year to a little over $1 billion in the first six months of 2012.

Still, Search Marketing continued to dominate both in its contribution to the market (48%) and in its growth rate (19%) as compared to the 2011 period. Search brought in $8.1 billion in the first six months of 2012.

Meanwhile, Display, which represented 36% of revenues in the first half of 2011, slipped to accounting for just 33% of the market in the same period of 2012. The sector still grew 4% to $5.6 billion, however.

Growth overall slowed from the first half of 2011 to the same period in 2012 (14%), as compared to the 2010 to 2011 change of 23%.

When the IAB looked at pricing models, performance-based (CPC) pricing grew from 64% to 67% of the market in the first half of 2012, as compared to the 2011 period. CPC stole share from Hybrid models, which dipped from 5% to just 2%. CPM pricing stayed steady, representing 31% of spending.

The bulk of online advertising revenues (73%) continued to be concentrated within the 10 top ad-selling companies in the second quarter of 2012. That’s up slightly from 72% in the year-ago period.

The biggest spenders continued to be retail advertisers, accounting for 20% of the market in the first half of 2012, though their share of spend dipped from 23% in the year-ago period. Meanwhile, Telecom slipped from 14% of the market to 12%, and automotive surged from 11% to 13%. Pharma also increased its share of spend, from 4% to 6%.