US market research company JupiterResearch has predicted that online advertising will more than double in the next five years to at least USD16 billion.
The forecast, presented at the Jupiter/ClickZ Ad Forum in New York, asserts that the online advertising market will grow from USD6.6 billion in 2003 to USD16.1 billion by 2009.
While paid search revenues would grow 30% compounded annually over the next two years, Jupiter said this function was no longer the sole driver of online advertising spending.
Display advertisements and online classifieds would each grow by more than 25% compounded annually over the same period.
Much of the growth in online advertising could be credited to the increasing sophistication of advertisers, the company's research summary said.
Benefiting from experience and a more powerful tool set, advertisers were now better able to target, measure and convert their audiences online.
This would provide advertisers with the confidence to allocate more of their advertising dollars to the Internet and a willingness to pay more for premium online inventory as it became scarce.
"The growth in online advertising is the product of all the progress that websites and technology providers have made in the last two years," JupiterResearch senior analyst Gary Stein said.
"We've seen companies very actively working to make the Internet a more attractive advertising medium.
"With targeting technologies, the discovery of search by major advertisers, and real measurement and planning tools, the Internet is ready to fulfil its early promises of effectiveness, reach and trackability."
Forkliftaction.com general manager Ann Hofmans said the JupiterResearch findings provided further proof that online advertising worked.
"As industry worldwide takes its first steps into online advertising, it follows other businesses who, after successful trials, are moving bigger parts of their advertising budgets from the traditional media to online publications," she said.
"The biggest advantages of online advertising are its reasonable set-up cost and its transparency.
"You can actually measure the results and the return on your investment - an advantage which the traditional print media cannot offer."