IP Communications

eMarketer (News - Alert) predicts that advertisers in the U.S. will spend $24.9 billion online this year.

 

That estimate is slightly lower than the one eMarketer released in March 2008, which said that U.S. online advertising spending would reach $25.9 billion in 2008. The lowered estimate still represents an increase of 17.4 percent over 2007.

 

"Even as the potent mix of a misfiring economy and consumers' changing media habits shave advertising dollars from traditional venues, such as newspapers and television, Internet ad spending will continue to grow rapidly," says David Hallerman, senior analyst at eMarketer.

 

Increased digital ad spending is coming out of traditional media budgets, of course. Although TV ad spending is set to increase by 7.1 percent in 2008 to $72.6 billion, eMarketer predicts such spending will actually shrink in 2009 by 2.6 percent before resuming one percent to two percent growth in 2010 and 2011.

 

Hiccups of this sort happen all the time in the forecasting business, and for obvious reasons. One never knows when economic growth will heat up or slow down, when an “oil shock” or war might begin, disrupting the assumptions that drove the original forecasts. “Lumpiness” is to be expected.