Online Ad Revenues Exceed $5B in Q2

New York, NY, October 8, 2007-- Internet advertising revenues (U.S.) for the first six months of 2007 were nearly $10 billion, setting yet another new record and representing a nearly 27% increase over the first half of 2006, according to The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) .

Internet advertising revenue totaled nearly $5.1 billion for the second quarter of 2007, exceeding the $5 billion mark for the first time in a quarter, a 25.4% increase over the same period in 2006.

"The torrid growth of interactive advertising revenue persists and these results are really no surprise but very welcome news," said Randall Rothenberg, president and CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau. "More and more marketers have embraced the reality that interactive is the fulcrum on which their brand strategies need to be based and we expect robust growth to continue."

"The first six months of 2007 has continued the trend over the past several years of strong sequential growth," said David Silverman, partner, Entertainment, Media & Communications Practice, PricewaterhouseCoopers. "The growth, which was led by strong increases in the consumer advertising sector, continues to point to the mainstream acceptance of the medium and advertisers' continuing reliance on it."

The lion’s share of spending went to “search,” where 41% of money was spent. Classified ads accounted for 17%, down from 20% last year.