One in ten firms spend tenth of marketing budget online

Ten per cent of UK companies now spend more than ten per cent of their marketing budgets on internet-based activity, either on e-marketing or e-commerce.

The latest Bellwether Report from the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising reveals that internet-based marketing now accounts for 3.5 per cent of all marketing expenditure, with stronger growth than all other types of marketing activity.

John Owen, chairman of the IPA’s digital marketing group and planning director of digital agency Dare, says: “Digital marketing’s effectiveness has created a momentum that continues to gather pace. More clients than ever are investing upwards of ten per cent [of their marketing budget] in the medium, while over a fifth are now investing five per cent or more.”

Less than a quarter of the respondents to the IPA survey said they allocate no money at all to internet advertising or sponsorship, and while 3.4 per cent said they had cut their internet marketing budget in the three months prior to the survey, 26.5 per cent said they had increased their budget.