What Will Online Advertising Look Like in 2013?

To answer that question in one word: Bigger. Online advertising, and in fact everything digital, is going to become bigger (and hopefully better) in every way.

Let’s start off with the numbers. Online advertising revenues will reach $30 Billion – that’s eleven zeros, for those counting at home. This is an immense amount. Granted, it is still not surpassed the amount of advertising spent on television or print. But there’s no reason to think it surpassing both won’t happen either this decade or next.

Of course, online advertising doesn’t only mean desktop computers. Advertising spending on tablets and mobile is on track to more than double this year from 2011. If you haven’t yet considered mobile advertising for your company, you’re missing out on an opportunity where, for a very limited time longer, there is still a low competitor to consumer ratio.

In addition, expect social media can be expected to continue its rise to the top of most marketing mixes. Facebook’s IPO might not have gone as they planned, but that doesn’t change the fact that they still have over 1,000,000,000 users (9 zeros that time,) and persist as the one website where users spend most of their time. Don’t put all you digital eggs in one online basket, though.

It’s no longer sufficient for a company to just have Facebook and Twitter profiles. Your digital marketing team must be constantly looking out for new social media networks that fit your target niche. Pinterest hit it big in 2012. Our early bets for 2013 are on Pheed and, believe it or not, Google+. Yes, that Google+, the one that you haven’t checked in months. Google knows how big social is. They will keep trying, with all of that cash behind them, we don’t expect it to fail.

That’s where we see digital going. What about you? What do you think will be the next big thing?