Online ads to grow despite credit crunch

12th November 2007

Even if the advertising industry is affected by the US economic recession, spending on online marketing is expected to remain high, claimed the Financial Times.

Eric Bader, managing director of digital at MediaVest, told the newspaper that even if advertising budgets are cut, "digital will still continue to grow".

"The focus will be on advertising that can be measured for effectiveness and online will gain share relative to television, newspapers or radio," he commented.

The newspaper reported that a previous US economic downturn did cause advertising budgets to be cut but that the increase of search advertising since then has led to a new positive outlook.

It attributes the confidence to the wider use of targeted ad-networks and the growth of large search engines such as Google.

Market research firm eMarketer recently forecast that spending on online advertising is set to hit $42 billion (£20 billion) by 2011. It predicts that paid search advertising will make up 40 per cent of the total.