--- title: "eMarketer Report: Online Advertising Hit $100 Billion in 2012" id: "15299" type: "post" slug: "emarketer-report-online-advertising-hit-100-billion-in-2012" published_at: "2013-01-10T21:31:16+00:00" modified_at: "2026-11-09T19:04:52+00:00" url: "https://associationsnow.com/2013/01/10/emarketer-report-online-advertising-hit-100-billion-in-2012/" markdown_url: "https://associationsnow.com/2013/01/10/emarketer-report-online-advertising-hit-100-billion-in-2012.md" excerpt: "Online advertising grew to an all-time high in 2012, and it’s on track to have even bigger gains in the years to come. How are you utilizing digital ads?" taxonomy_category: - "Marketing / Communications" taxonomy_post_tag: - "Ad Spending" - "Advertising" - "AssociationsNow" - "Business" - "Marketing" taxonomy_content_format: - "Article" taxonomy_role: - "C-Level" - "Executive Team" - "VP" taxonomy_persona: - "Industry Professionals" --- [Home](https://associationsnow.com/) » [Articles](https://associationsnow.com/format/article/) » eMarketer Report: Online Advertising Hit $100 Billion in 2012 A recent report from eMarketer notes that spending on online advertising topped $100 billion for the first time last year, according to [Forbes (opens in a new tab)](http://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthof/2013/01/09/online-ad-spending-tops-100-billion-in-2012/) . > Trustworthy and credible reporting, as well as adherence to uniform industry standards, are vital to ensuring the growth and success of the mobile advertising market. Advertisers spent nearly $102 billion online in 2012—a level that shouldn’t seem surprising, considering how inundated the average internet user is with ads—with digital accounting for one in five ad dollars. Expect the trend to continue, too: By 2016, digital spending is expected to constitute a quarter of all ad spending. As a result of the growth, marketing and advertising groups are working to ensure best practices in the industry—taking stances against [anti-piracy and counterfeiting sites (opens in a new tab)](http://blog.zwillgen.com/2012/05/11/big-data-meets-big-content-advertisers-issue-best-practices-against-online-piracy/) and making efforts to improve the reliability of mobile web advertising by issuing new guidelines. “Trustworthy and credible reporting, as well as adherence to uniform industry standards, are vital to ensuring the growth and success of the mobile advertising market,” Anna Bager, vice president and general manager of the Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence at the Interactive Advertising Bureau, said in a [statement (opens in a new tab)](http://www.iab.net/about_the_iab/recent_press_releases/press_release_archive/press_release/pr-111912_mobile) . More advertising data pulled from an [infographic (opens in a new tab)](http://www.go-gulf.com/blog/online-ad-spending/) from Go-Gulf: **Unsurprisingly, North America** tops spending for online ads at nearly 42 percent of all ads sold, but that number is expected to shrink as international ad markets expand. **Google tops online advertising** market share at 44 percent, with Yahoo and Microsoft tied for a distant second place. **Agencies look to Facebook** **first**—by a wide margin—for spending on social media ads, with Twitter and YouTube running behind. **Search-based advertising** is the most popular platform, accounting for nearly half of all ads purchased, with display banner ads coming in second with nearly 25 percent of the market. The retail industry spends the most on online advertising, with telecommunications and financial services following. Where do you focus your digital ad dollars? Let us know in the comments. (Yagi Studio/Digital Vision/Thinkstock) [Chloe Thompson](https://associationsnow.com/author/chloe-thompson/) Chloe Thompson is a contributing writer to Associations Now. 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