Online marketing budgets 'set to grow'

14/07/2008

About 19 per cent of UK businesses believe they will increase expenditure on online marketing activities, according to a new report.

In news that may be of relevance to the search engine optimisation market, the Bellwether report compiled by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising showed that this is in spite of cutbacks in other parts of advertising budgets.

The publication suggested that companies intend to cut their overall marketing budgets for the third successive quarter as a result of increasing costs and lower-than-forecast sales.

"Internet spending will continue to grow as more clients see the importance of this form of communication and the ability to use this medium, like PR, in a tactical context," stated Anthony Wreford, deputy chairman of Omnicom Europe, in comments to the Guardian.

According to the International Herald Tribune, a growing number of marketers are looking to online advertising because the channel offers a simple way of measuring the effectiveness of ads.