Digital Marketing is so much more cost effective than offline - ignore it at your peril

Internet marketing consultants and others in the industry will be spending a greater proportion of their overall advertising budget on the internet, a new report has revealed.

Conducted by Econsultancy and ExactTarget, Marketing Budgets 2010: Effectiveness, Measurement and Allocation indicated that web-based promotions will account for 24 per cent of total advertising expenditure this year, with 28 per cent of firms moving at least some of their spend to the internet.

In addition, companies look set to direct less money towards offline channels such as telemarketing, print media, direct mail, television and radio.

Econsultancy's research director Linus Gregoriadis predicted that social media will generate the greatest interest from businesses, "but areas such as search engine marketing and email will remain buoyant".

It was also found that paid search provides the best opportunities for measuring return on investment (ROI), with 54 per cent stating they are "good" at monitoring this for pay-per-click activities.

Director of research and strategy at ExactTarget Morgan Stewart remarked: "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 [ROI]."

Meanwhile, a further study conducted by Coremetrics revealed the three most common types of online marketing to be email marketing, with 87 per cent using this, display advertising (86 per cent) and paid search (69 per cent).