Online advertisers expect budget increases in 2004 and 2005

More than half (56%) of the marketers Millward Brown surveyed indicated that their total marketing and media budgets increased in 2004 over 2003, and 60% expect the upward trend to continue through 2005. Optimism about budgets swelled, with 81% of marketers with budgets above $400 mln expecting increases, compared to 44% of marketers with budgets under $25 mln. Looking forward, the largest portion (28.2%) of survey participants named Web advertising as the online marketing application that would grow the most over the next five years. E-mail marketing was a strong second with 19.2% expecting the most growth, followed by search (16.3%), online promotions (13.9%), and affiliate marketing (9.8%).