Internet Ad Revenues Rebounded, Hit Record High in 2010

Revenues from Internet advertising got back on track and broke records last year — just as they have done every year, with the exception of 2009.

According to a report by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, online ad revenue jumped 15% to $26 billion in 2010. That’s a sharp reversal from a 3.4% decline during the recession of the previous year.

Search advertising once again took the biggest share of revenues: 46%. That was down slightly from 47% the previous year, but the search category as a whole grew 12% in 2010. Display advertising accounted for 38% of the market. That’s up from 35% in 2009. The display ad market grew by roughly a quarter in 2010.

The biggest category expansion, however, came in sponsorships, which grew 88% in 2010. The fourth quarter alone saw a 142% increase in sponsorships.

Other highlights from the IAB’s report:

• Classified advertising accounted for 10% of revenues for 2010 or $2.6 billion, which was up 15% from 2009′s $2.3 billion.
• Lead-generation revenues were down 8% to $1.3 billion.
• Email marketing revenues fell 33%, to $195 million. That’s just 1% of the market.
• Mobile advertising, which hadn’t previously been included in the IAB’s report, is now estimated to account for between $550 million and $650 million.

The report also looks at who is paying for those ads. The leading spender once again: retail stores, which bought 21% of inventory last year.

Telecom and financial services were second and third, respectively.

A full copy of the report is available here.

Image courtesy of Flickr, tonyhall

via mashable.com

Repeat Visitors vs New Visitors – Which is Worth More to Your AdSense Earnings?

This dispelled the myth that loyal readers to your site become blind to ads and are not likely to click them – but I wanted to dig down a little deeper to look at the difference between first time visitors and repeat visitors and how they interact with ads. Here’s what I found when I looked at the last 3 months.

On my photography site it is the case the new visitors click ads and earn more per 1000 visitors than repeat visitors.

In addition to those coming from newsletters repeat visitors on my site would include RSS readers, visitors from social media (facebook and Twitter).

This makes sense – those there for the first time are probably clicking around more, exploring and looking for things to click on. They’re also seeing ad units for the first time and are likely to click them.

However repeat visitors are not far behind. I’m not allowed to share the exact figures but the difference in CTR was tiny and the eCPM difference while noticeable was not huge. Repeat readers are still valuable – particularly as many of them are coming back on a daily basis so on a per visit basis they’re not earning as much but over a year they’re earning considerably more than a one time visitor.