Avenue A/Razorfish, which is a division of advertising agency aQuantive, has confirmed that it spent a total of $542 million (£280.65 million) on internet marketing during 2006 - a 30 per cent increase compared to 2005 levels as online marketing becomes an even more important advertising tool.
Jeff Lanctot, senior vice president and general manager at Avenue A/ Razorfish, explained: "Unlike traditional marketing, the impact, reach and accountability of online marketing resulted in strong growth in 2006 for many web publishers."
He added: "Long-time digital leaders like Google, Yahoo! and MSN enjoyed an aggressive increase in advertising spend, as did resurgent properties like AOL and new destinations like social networks and blogs."
The company's search billings rose by 17 per cent over the year, with spending on Google increasing at the fastest rate in the overall search category. It is predicted that the use of portals will continue to prove popular throughout the industry.
In addition, Avenue A/Razorfish stressed the growing popularity of MySpace as its share of vertical billings increased by 354 per cent over the 12 months.
