eMarketer Senior Analyst David Hallerman attributes much of the growth to Google's recent $1.65 billion purchase of YouTube. "The aftershock of that mash-up will, all by itself, contribute greatly to Internet video's growth with products akin to AdWords for Video," he wrote in the new report.
While eMarketer predicts that spending for online video ads will grow by at least 45% every year through at least 2010, ad spending in particular will boom next year with a growth rate of 89%, according to the report. By comparison, total online ad spending will increase 15.1% next year and rich media spending will increase 40.7%, according to eMarketer.
At the same time, the total ad dollars devoted to online video don't come close to approaching the ad dollars that are spent on TV. eMarketer pegs this year's online video ad spending at $410 million--just 0.6% of the TV ad spend.