Online advertising is enjoying a banner year, and that presents opportunities for ecommerce merchants, say tech writers and pundits. Erick Schonfeld of TechCrunch reports that online ad spending is expected to grow 20 percent in 2011, double the rate of growth for 2010. Total spending will rise to $31.3 billion, and will continue to rise to $50 billion in 2015, per a June 2011 forecast by eMarketer. The implications for ecommerce are compelling. Salman Shah Jilani of TMC News reports that online advertising offers a huge price advantage over traditional advertising. "It is definitely much easier and cheaper to advertise and market a business over the Internet. There are so many ways to advertise a business online."

According to E-Commerce Times, display ads such as banners are going to be the biggest form of online advertising by dollar value, overtaking search engine advertising. "Display ads have the potential to reach out to customers who are already familiar with a company and reconvert them, boosting revenue," writes Erika Morphy in, "It?s Back to Boom Times for Online Advertising."

"The current strength in online advertising is coming primarily from the growing popularity of the display format," according to an ecommerce outlook report on WallStreetPit.com. "The underlying drivers of growth are the continued increase in the number of users, greater propensity of users to consume online, a growing inventory of advertisements that serve to lower ad prices, and the push into display advertising." This bodes well for ecommerce merchants, along with the time savings and convenience of online transactions.