Survey exposes slump in Internet advertising
Rapid growth rates in advertising on the Web slowed significantly in the third quarter of 1996, according to the leading tracker of Internet-based advertising, Jupiter Communications.
Total World Wide Web ad revenue for the period is estimated to be $66m (42m) by Jupiter’s regular AdSpend survey. The survey does not include money spent by companies developing their own branded Websites.
The third-quarter ad total represents a jump of 43 per cent over the previous quarter. But that jump is well down on the 87 per cent average growth rate registered over the first two quarters of the year.
Jupiter is playing down suggestions that advertising demand on the world’s busiest Websites is beginning to plateau, claiming growth rates for the end of the year are likely to return to their previous levels.
“Growth did slow in the third quarter, but it picked up after the summer months and does appear to have been a seasonal lull,” says Peter Stork, group director of online advertising at Jupiter.
The top ten Websites accounted for 64 per cent of advertising revenue on the Net, while Web publishers outside the top 25 sites picked up only 14 per cent.
Although technology-related ads continue to dominate the medium, Jupiter suggests that mainstream consumer advertising is taking an increasing share of Web advertising.
Four mainstream US advertisers – Toyota, Procter & Gamble, Ford and GM’s Saturn – made it to the top 25 ranking of advertising spenders for the period.
New Media, page 26
