WebProNews

Full year online advertising spending in 2006 brushed against the underside of $17 billion, and ended up 35 percent higher than 2005's annual revenue. The numbers are out from the Interactive Advertising Bureau, and they carry with them a heavy component of ka-ching.

Spending reached $16.9 billion for online ads in 2006. Of that spending, $4.8 billion took place in the fourth quarter, the traditional holiday shopping period. Both the full year and the fourth quarter figures exceeded their 2005 counterparts by 35 percent.

Keyword search ads led all categories measured by IAB. Forty percent of ad spending, some $6.8 billion, ended up in the pockets of Google, Yahoo, and other search advertising firms.

Display ads earned $3.68 billion, followed by $3 billion for classifieds. Email advertising had the lowest figure among the eight categories, picking up a relatively minuscule $338 million in revenue.

Online video ads, part of a rich media category that picked up $1.2 billion in 2006, will get a workout from Google soon. The company will launch a closed pilot of AdSense video advertising this week.