With a population highly engaged in living digitally and an economy less troubled than many others, Canada will see strong growth in online ad spending in the next few years. Spending, though, will still not rival US levels—even on a per-person basis.

eMarketer estimates that advertisers in Canada will spend over $2.5 billion online this year, up 18.5% over 2010. Online ad spending increases will continue in the double digits through 2014, but taper off gradually during the period. In 2015, ad spending will grow just shy of 10%, to surpass $4 billion.

These gains in online spending will come against a backdrop of far more modest gains in total ad spending in Canada. That figure is expected to rise from $11.65 billion last year to $14.28 billion in 2015.

Within online, video advertising will have the highest growth rates during the forecast period, followed by search, which has the highest spending overall.

With the overall size of Canada’s internet population no longer in its phase of rapid growth, big increases in online ad spending will inevitably mean a rise in the amount that is spent per internet user. eMarketer expects online ad spending per internet user in Canada to climb from $99 this year to $149 in 2015.

But even these increases put it far off the mark set by the US, where advertisers will spend $135 per internet user to advertise online this year, a figure that will rise to $192 by 2015, eMarketer estimates.

eMarketer benchmarks its Canadian online ad spending forecast against data from the IAB Canada, for which the last full year measured was 2010. US online ad spending forecasts are benchmarked against IAB/PwC data, for which the last full year measured was also 2010.