The good times are getting better in the world of marketing, apparently.

In the last 10 days, Marketing magazine’s inbox has been buffeted with figures of impressive increases in ad revenue for television, outdoor and radio, and now online is jumping on the victory wagon. 

The Interactive Advertising Bureau has reported a $105.5 million increase in online advertising expenditure over the third quarter of 2010, compared with the third quarter of last year.

Growth in online advertising expenditure was experienced in all categories quarter on quarter, with general display growing by 26%, classifieds by 30%, and search and directories by 18%.

“Feedback from media agencies and advertisers indicates a continued and growing confidence in the online channel as an effective medium to reach, engage and influence consumers, and these expenditure figures demonstrate that investment is indeed following consumer behaviour – online, Paul Fisher, CEO of IAB Australia said.

“This latest expenditure data puts the medium on track to exceed $2.2 billion for calendar year 2010, taking a growing share of the Australian total advertising market.”

General display advertising and classifieds advertising accounted for 26.5 percent and 24.6 percent respectively of the total advertising expenditure for the third quarter 2010, while search & directories advertising comprised the remaining 48.9 percent.

Within general display, email based advertising comprised $7.6m of advertising expenditure, a six percent increase from the third quarter last year.

Video-based advertising made up $8.4m of advertising expenditure, but was down on the second quarter of this year.

The biggest advertisers:

Finance, motor vehicles and computers & communications continue to be the dominant industries using general display advertising, making 44.3 percent of the general display spending. 

Motor vehicle (manufacturers) was the largest subcategory at 10.5 percent of general display spending for the quarter, marginally down from 10.7 percent in second-quarter of 2010.

Real estate was the leading category for classifieds advertising expenditure in third-quarter 2010, followed by recruitment, and then automotive.

Pru Quinlan of Einsteinz Communications tells Marketing magazine that the 2010 IAB Online Advertising Expenditure Report retrieved advertising data from more than 1,000 websites, both major publishers and long tail online publishers.

PricewaterhouseCoopers have handled the study for the last four years, the annual report is in its 7th year.