Internet advertising nears £1 billion (€1500m) for the first six months of 2006. Though the figure is lower than the US $7900m for the equivalent period, UK spend is higher on a per capita basis than the US. The figure below shows online advertising revenue growth for the US

On a per capita basis, the UK leads the way with €50 per capita, followed by the US and France with around €40 per capita. Scandinavia follows with high €30 values. But online advertising has yet to reach the tipping point in southern Europe; Italy, Portugal and Spain have single digit per capita online spend values, typically €5 per capita. But growth is 30-50 percent in all countries.

The 40 percent year on year growth takes online advertising to 10.5 percent of the UK's advertising market, almost equal to the National Press' market share. UK advertising is now shared among the different medium as follows

1. TV 22.7% market share
2. National Press 11.4 %
3. Online 10.5 %
4. Outdoor 5.1%
5. Consumer magazines 4.6%
6. radio advertising 3.4%

The study by IAB and Price WaterHouse shows online advertising is split as follows

1. Paid-for search takes 57.9%
2. Online display (banners and skyscrapers) 23.5%
3. online classified advertising 17.7%
4. Interruptive formats, including 'pop ups', declined to 0.7%
5. Email marketing and others taking the remaining 0.8%

The US IAB study shows that performance based advertising, the Cost-per-Action (CPA) model is rising over the Cost-per-Click (CPC) models, as shown in the table left.

The sector ranking in online advertsing spend is as follows:

1. Recruitment and finance account for over half the spend
2. Automotive 13.8%
3. Entertainment and Media 8.9%
4. Consumer Goods, which includes FMCG, rose to 4.6%,
5. Retail increases to 3%

The trend is for adspend to even out across categories, retail increasing its share by 30% as ecommerce takes off.