Digital Ad Growth Helps Industry Revenue Rise 8.6 Percent

(MoneyWatch)  Ad Age put out its revenue numbers for the industry as a whole for 2007, and found a surprising 8.6 percent jump in growth. With a slumping print industry continuing a multi-year swan dive, that growth was bolstered by a lot of digital. From Ad Age:

While it comes as no surprise that revenue at digital specialty agencies rocketed last year (up 26.8% in the U.S.), it's clear that digital services have become a way of life (or a way to avoid death) for agencies of all disciplines. In fact, U.S. ad agencies reported an average 10.2% of revenue from digital in 2007.

And in some cases, it was a lot more. Goodby, Silverstein & Partners ... said digital services last year generated 52% of its revenue. The San Francisco agency works for such digitally connected clients as Hewlett-Packard Co. ...

Ad Age estimates that the Big 4 ad firms -- Omnicom Group, WPP Group, Interpublic Group of Cos. and Publicis Groupe -- last year generated 12.3% of worldwide revenue from digital services.

Also put out today, Ad Age's Top 50 Digital Agencies in the U.S., and Ad Week's Digital Agency Report Card. And Catherine Taylor over at Adverganza breaks down Ad Week's Report Card without all that clicking around:

AGENCY.COM: D AKQA: A- AVENUE A/RAZORFISH: B DIGITAS: C+ ICROSSING: C MRM WORLDWIDE: C OGILVY INTERACTIVE: B ORGANIC: B R/GA: B TRIBAL DDB: B+