Rich media growing faster than search

Rich media is set to overtake paid search as the largest growing area of online advertising, according to a new US report by eMarketer. Emarketer found that growth of paid search will drop by more than 16% from last year, whilst rich media growth this year will remain high at over 45%. Projected growth rates in 2007 for search and rich media are 18.9% and 45.3% respectively in the US, confirming that rich media now represents the biggest growth trend in online advertising.

This trend is similar in the EMEA region where the paid search year on year growth rate has dropped 13% to 30% for 2007.

Of course, all of these projections still represent a massive growth in online investment across the globe, but, the key drivers of growth appear to have changed. In 2007, traditional brand advertisers are likely to be more responsible for growth than ever, as many of the global brands now recognise the brand – and brand response – value of rich media.