Want to make money online? Go for iTunes not ads.

The top digital media companies increased their revenues by more than 20 percent in 2008. How? Well it wasn’t online ads. Instead, it was largely thanks to a pay-for-media approach, according to new research from Strategy Analytics.

Leading the way in this field was Apple, with the “Other Music Related Products and Services” area of its business, which includes iTunes. Apple saw its revenue grow 32.7 percent last year in this category, according to the data. That’s impressive, and it’s no doubt thanks in large part to its App Store, which launched last July.

That model is leading analysts to suggest that the pay-for-media model will become an area of focus for a lot of these companies in the years ahead while the world battles economic troubles. The thought is that this model is a much more attractive one than advertising, which continues to slow down. That seems pretty obvious but is perhaps worth saying again for those of your out there who may have missed it the last hundred times.

Of course, the same study suggests that revenues among these top companies will only grow 7 to 9 percent in 2009, so perhaps there will be no singular savior. But following Apple’s announcement of in-app purchases with the iPhone 3.0 software, I’m a firm believer that its revenue will continue upward and could be poised to explode even further in that category.

[photo: flickr/ben chau]