Online Advertising Isn't Going Anywhere But Up

The Boston Globe features an Associated Press article today that explores the general direction of online advertising and marketing in the next five years. That direction is apparently up...and then some. While the IAB says that online advertising is on target to top $16 billion this year, a new report estimates that that number could hit $43 billion by the end of 2011. What does that mean to you?

It means that there's still plenty of growth potential for businesses of all sizes.

It also means that new online advertising opportunities are going to continue to pop up. With paid search advertisement on mainstream search sites like Google, Yahoo and Windows Live Search bound to level out in the coming years, it's likely that we'll see much of that projected growth in areas that are currently underrepresented. Online advertising will find it's way into social media sites, specialty search services and local search services. I also expect that we'll see an expansion of advertising on blogs as more companies introduce aggregated advertising options like AdSense and Chitika so that smaller publishers can get matched up with advertisers as well.

In other words, the game's not over yet. It's really still just beginning.