According to market research company, IDC, the worldwide online ad spending dropped by 5 percent from $14.7 billion in Q2 2008 to $13.9 billion in Q2 2009.
The online ad industry is also forecasted to experience further dip in ad spending for Q3 and Q4 in 2009.
The only region that didn’t get hit is Asia Pacific, which in contradiction experienced slight gains.
In the United States, online ad spending experienced a 7 percent drop from the previous year. The industry is now worth US$6.2 billion, compared to $6.6 billion last year.
IDC reported that ad spending on the classifieds got hit most severely, contracting by 17 percent. Among all the major publishers, Monster.com received the worst hit with a 31 percent decline. On the other hand, search ads were the least affected, helping Google post a small gain.
Let’s see if Google’s new Conversion Optimizer can bring back some hope to the industry.
Via IDG
