Marketing Forecast from Ad-ology

Despite the gloom that hung over last year’s advertising market, the online sector fared better than traditional media forms. Until now, most forecasters have remained generally cautious about the 2010 outlook, even for online spending. And, in a report published late last week, eMarketer announced that its analysts expected to see online ad growth of 5.5% for 2010.

Magazine publishers, like most content providers, have long relied on marketers for most of their revenue. As magazines shift from traditional print to the online publication channel will readers pay attention to the ads? Josh Gordon, founder of Smarter Media Sales, recently studied this topic. Specifically, Gordon was interested in determining whether consumer behavior with respect to ads differs when it comes to a magazine’s digital edition as opposed to a Web site.

Despite the controversy surrounding behaviorally targeted ads, marketers are committed to this way of reaching consumers. E-marketer reports that businesses will increase BT ad spending from $778 million in 2008 to $4.4 billion in 2012. According to a Network Advertising Initiative Study, there are two forces driving investment in this industry: Web publishers, ad network and services providers are generating profits from these efforts and marketers are seeing higher conversion efforts when consumers are behaviorally targeted.

When TV shows first started appearing online, some analysts predicted that heavy consumer migration to the Web would impact the advertising business model. But that has not been entirely the case. Writing for the New York Times, Stuart Elliott notes that there has been more synergy than erosion as marketers increase their presence online rather than replacing what they have been doing via TV.

Yesterday, I blogged about the expected growth rates in mobile marketing and how specific age groups find some mobile ad types more appealing than others. Many industry watchers expect 2010 to be the ‘break-out’ year for mobile marketing. As a result, DM2PRO and Mojiva recently polled industry professionals regarding their planned use of mobile marketing in 2010.

As smart phone usage continues to rise – the penetration rate is now at 30% – marketers are looking for the best way to reach consumers who are spending more time connecting with information on the go. Ad spending in this sector is expected to reach nearly $593 million in 2010. And according to eMarketer, ad revenue is projected to grow through 2013 as follows: