$40 Billion Spent On Web Advertising

eMarketer reports that online ad spending increased by 23% last year and is anticipated to reach almost $40 billion in 2012. The growth rate will slow slightly over the next five years but will still be more than $60 billion by 2016.

But the really interesting stuff comes in the part of the report that talks about TV advertising.

TV is sustaining its current level of ad spending but is only increasing very slowly. This means that soon after 2016 online advertising will overtake TV and be taking a greater share of CMO budgets. Essentially, print and TV are stagnating while online is going to drive all the growth.

As we have have stated here several times before, the shift from TV to digital advertising represent the biggest opportunity yet for performance marketers to achieve real penetration into major brand boardrooms. Once online is bigger than TV, attention will shift. Digital will be top-of-mind for all marketers and performance marketing needs to be ready to lead the charge and plant a big flag on top of the brand marketing hill.