It’s a digital world, where everything ranging from intelligence to love is found online. So the growth online advertising spend has been seeing globally shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody. US, which has been leading the online-advertising-spend market has been seeing a growth rate of more than 20% year-on-year and it does not seem likely to see a slump in the chart anytime soon. If analysts are to be believed, and I think they are correct, total online ad spend by 2015 will be hovering close to the $50-billion mark. So, with time at hand, and nothing better to do, I decided to read up on how the world of online-advertising is slithering its way to the $50-billion line.

Search engines, something that will always be attributed to the accelerant to online-advertising continues to be the major source, and companies more-than-ever are showing interest in getting their ads featured on the search results page of major search engines like Google and Yahoo! Banner ads as well, despite being marked ‘soon-to-be-dead’ by analysts, continue to grow strong – and major ad networks are attributing to a significant share of the total ad-impressions served. What is noteworthy here is the dominance of Video advertising as the fastest growing format.

Video advertising – generating greater audience attention than any other digital ad format – continues to attract new ad spending from brands, and makes you wonder if Google was able to buy off Youtube at a price too cheap. With more than $2-billion being spent by brands on Video advertising in US alone, it is all set to be the #3 in online advertising format list – right after Search and Banner ads. A mighty huge number, you might say; but then if you really look at the eyeballs it generates for each ad displayed, you will find that its influence far outpaces the ad-dollars being spent on it.

What was the most significant finding of this hour long leisure-read, however, was the fact that despite the presence of tons of ad-networks, and in-house ad-sales teams at popular local web-portals, the big 5 – Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Facebook, and AOL – comprise together close to 70% of the total money being spent by brands on online-advertising.

Though Facebook is lagging behind Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft in terms of the advertising dollars being spent on it, it is quickly catching up on Microsoft, and it is possible that the overtake will happen in less than 6 months from now. With more than 500-million active users on Facebook, the fan engagement is seeing a remarkable increase, and the ad-spend on the global social-network leader is expected to see a quarter-on-quarter increase of 25-40%. Cost per click of the ads being served on Facebook had seen an increase of more than 50% in the last quarter, which intensifies the aggression with which marketers are moving on to Facebook to connect better with their audience and customers alike. But, if I remember correctly, Facebook had recently revised the CPC rates in an attempt to please the marketers and encourage them use its platform to advertise more and more – a move likely inspired by the increased engagement of users on Facebook, which has led to an increase of around 18% in the Click-through-rate on Facebook. The CPC rates, which Facebook had been increasing throughout the second quarter, have been revised globally (except in the UK, where it is still witnessing an upward growth) to lure more and more marketers on.

So, what happens now? Is this the point where online advertising will stop evolving and will now continue to just bring in more and more money for their respective platforms? I highly doubt it! If anything, the growth of ad-spends and CTRs on Facebook tells us the ways in which users engage with an advertisement. A massive Facebook marketing helped UrbanTouch get more than 200,000 users onto its Facebook page in less than 4 months! Innovation and strategies to engage more with the users/audience will always be the theme, no matter how much money existing concepts/strategies bring in.