IDC: Recession Problems Don't Affect Online Spend...

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IDC: Recession Problems Don't Affect Online Spend
It's drizzling green
Research firm IDC released a report suggesting the country's economic slump has not yet impacted online ad spend, reports ClickZ.
Q1 revenue from online advertising reached $7.1 billion, up 24 percent from 1Q07, the IDC said. It also predicted continued growth of 15 to 20 percent per quarter through the rest of the year.
US share of online advertising will grow from 8.6 percent currently to 15.6 percent by 2012. Google currently holds 24.8 percent of the online ad market, up from 23.1 in the first quarter of 2007, the IDC reported.
Yahoo and Microsoft came second and third, with Yahoo said to be suffering from the weak growth of Panama, and Microsoft finally showing signs of vigor. (The latter recently launched Microsoft Advertising, unifying all its cross-media ad services. It also shut down dormant services like Live Expo and Live Search Books/Academic, betraying a more aggressive focus in cross-platform ad services.)
Last month, a PubMatic report found online ad spend is affected by US economic woes. Large sites suffered most; small ones apparently benefited from ad spend conservatism.
In contrast, Eloqua found that 35 percent of marketers anticipate a decrease in ad spend across the next three years. But 23 percent of those surveyed did admit to increasing ad spend on Google AdWords; 26 percent increased direct email spend.
The IDC supports its findings by arguing that, if cuts are made, budgets for the least effective media will go first. The internet is often perceived as more effective than traditional ad spend because of marketers' ability to better track and target users online.