Germany: Online advertising becomes a billion-dollar business

According to the online marketers who are members of the German Digital Economy Association (BDW), around EUR 885 million was invested in online advertising in 2005. This corresponds to an increase of 60 percent compared to the previous year. A gross advertising volume of EUR 1.3 billion is forecast for 2006. euros is forecast for 2006. The only negative aspect of this development is that, for the first time, there was a shortage of advertising space on some high-reach websites at the end of 2005, as reported by the industry magazine Werben und Verkaufen. The most popular forms of advertising were super banners and rectangles. Thanks to increasing bandwidths, however, there is also a noticeable trend towards moving image advertising such as streaming ads and Flash animations. With sales of around EUR 245 million, search term marketing is in second place. The fastest growing segment has more than doubled with an increase of 123 percent. Search word marketing is also expected to grow the fastest in 2006. Affiliate networks also recorded an increase of 75 percent to a turnover of 105 million euros. Here, advertising is usually placed in a large network of websites with a lower reach. Online services were advertised the most, followed by telecommunications and finance. E-commerce ranked fourth, ahead of the automotive market in fifth place.