Online ad spending drops in first half
( 2001-09-11 09:59) (7)
Online ad spending fell ten per cent in the first half of 2001 to US$1.5 billion as slowing economic growth dented demand for advertising on the Internet, a research group said on Monday.
CMRi, the Internet unit of ad research firm Competitive Media Reporting, also said it did not expect ad spending to increase by the first quarter of 2002.
Among websites, Yahoo Inc's Yahoo continued to lead in overall website revenues, totaling US$197.3 million, up 1.7 per cent on the year, CMRi said. AOL Time Warner Inc's AOL.com came in second with US$174 million.
Among advertisers, General Motors Corp led spending with US$25.4 million in the first half of 2001. Online auction firm eBay Inc was a close second with ad spending of US$24.4 million during the first half of the year.
Online ad spending has been shrinking amid the general decline in traditional advertising and the wider dotcom shake-out.
"Although we saw a gradual increase for online spending in the last quarter of 2000, the economic environment did not exclude this medium from the drastic hit we've seen across the entire marketplace throughout the course of 2001," said David Peeler, CMR chief executive said.
"As budget planning for 2002 gets under way, companies still recovering from their losses will be reluctant to channel their dollars toward major ad campaigns. With this mind-set, we do not expect a jump-start in spending to kick in by first quarter 2002, as many have hoped," he said.
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