Digital Marketing Trends for 2012: Online ad spend to grow by over 20%

6S Marketing recently published an infographic on the Digital Marketing Budget Trends for 2012 highlighting an increase on digital marketing spend:

Key consumer insights:

• 35% of today's consumers spend 180 minutes or more online per day
• 20% of google searches by month are for local businesses
• 57% of internet users search The web everyday
• 46% of daily searches are for information on products or services

Activities consumers engage with online:

• 94% check email
• 87% search
• 78% do product research
• 75% get news
• 72% pass time
• 66% buy a product
• 61% use social networks
• 59% search "How To" info
• 32% rate product or service

Highlights on the Digital Marketing Spend:

• 28% of organizations are moving their marketing budget to digital channels
• 24% of overall marketing was spent on digital marketing in 2011
• 64% say they plan to increase budget for SEO
• 70% say they intend to increase investment on third party social media services such as Facebook.
• 54% increased their inbound marketing (blog, social media, SEO etc) budget in 2011
• Companies say that the social media sites that have generated most costumers are the Company blog and LinkedIn (57%), followed by Twitter (48%) and Facebook (42%)

The majority of companies understand the importance of having a great online presence and the online marketing is in constant growth.

Projected trends for 2012:

• Search marketing will lead the spending for interactive media followed by Display ads, E-mail marketing, Social media and Mobile marketing
• Online ad spending in the U.S. will grow by over 20% in 2012
• Mobile ad spending will reach over $1,1 Billion and over 75% of marketers plan to include mobile in their budgets
• Money spent to place ads on Social Networking Sites will increase from $1,4 Billion (2011) to $2,5 Billion

2012 looks to be an exciting year for the digital marketing business as more and more organizations allocate an increasing portion of their budget to an online presence. Brands need to identify their target groups and once found, listen and understand their needs. Brands need to be where their prospective customers are and as consumers spend more time online it's natural for the brands to follow.