Survey predicts surge in digital marketing spend

Exacttarget has released a survey that suggests increasing investment in social media, mobile marketing, e-mail marketing and search will fuel a 17 per cent surge in digital marketing spend in 2010.

The survey, conducted in conjunction with E-consultancy and comprising more than 1,000 company and agency marketers, found that marketers expect to shift budgets from television, print and radio towards digital marketing.

The outlook for offline channels is said to be much less favourable than its digital competitors, where 28 per cent of marketers will shift their overall marketing budgets towards digital in 2010.

In contract, the research depicts a healthier outlook for the burgeoning digital marketing industry, with 66 per cent of companies increasing their online marketing spend, and a further 30 per cent stating they will maintain the same levels of spend in this area.

On average, digital marketing currently accounts for 24 per cent of overall marketing spend.

Peter McCormick, general manager and co-founder of Exacttarget, said: 'The shift from offline to online is in full swing as marketers look to measure direct increases in top-line sales, site traffic and improve overall marketing return on investment (ROI).

'Interestingly, brand reputation is becoming a more significant driver of the migration to digital marketing, particularly when it comes to social media,' he added.

Seventy per cent of in-house marketers plan to increase their budgets for off-site social media marketing efforts, using agencies to engage with audiences on Facebook, Twitter and other networking sites.

But according to agency respondents, the biggest impediment to digital marketing investment is a general lack of understanding of digital marketing channels.

Forty-eight per cent of agency respondents cite this as the key reason, which prevents their clients from investing more money in this area.

Linus Gregoriadis, research director at E-consultancy, added: 'The research shows a healthy outlook for the digital marketing industry with the majority of responding companies increasing their budgets for most digital channels.

'Social media marketing is the area where companies are most likely to be spending more money during 2010, but areas such as search engine marketing and e-mail marketing will remain buoyant,' he added.

The research also looked at the effectiveness, measurement and allocation of budgets, and probed the differences between 'traditional' and digital marketing investment.

Online and offline channels have been compared individually, in terms of where companies are investing and their ability to measure ROI.

Back to top