Through online advertising’s ups and downs, search — because of its orientation toward performance — has always been a stalwart category. Despite much talk about branding, social and immersive advertising lately, search still commanded the lion’s share of online advertising revenues (46.5%) in 2011 and its share grew from 2010 numbers (44.8%), when it experienced a bit of a dip. That’s according to the latest report on interactive advertising revenues put out by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) in partnership with Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC), which looked at full-year 2011 revenues.

Search brought in $14.8 billion in the full year 2011, up almost 27 percent from $11.7 billion in 2010. Online advertising as a whole showed a 22% growth rate, according to the report.

In the fourth quarter of 2011, search revenues accounted for 46% of overall online ad spending, up from 43% in the same period of the previous year. The category brought in $4.2 billion in Q4 of 2011, up 29% year-over-year. In the fourth quarter of 2010, search represented $3.2 billion in revenues.

The continued strength in search jibes with trends in pricing models, as well. Performance priced ads accounted for 65% of full year 2011 revenues, up from 62% of the market in 2010. CPM or impression-based ads took 31% of the spend in 2011, down from 33% share in 2010. Ads priced on a hybrid basis were down to 4% share, from 5% the prior year.

P.S. Here’s our coverage of the full scope of the report on Marketing Land.

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Stats: History | Stats: Spend Projections | Top News

About The Author: Pamela Parker is a contributing editor for Search Engine Land and Executive Features Editor at Marketing Land. She’s a well-respected authority on digital marketing, having reported and written on the subject since 1998, including a stint as managing editor of ClickZ. She’s also worked to help monetize independent publishers’ sites at Federated Media Publishing. She blogs about media and marketing at The River and about cooking, gardening and parenthood at Free Range. She can be found on Twitter as @pamelaparker. See more articles by Pamela Parker

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