E-Marketing Budgets - How big is BIG?

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Coca Cola may have millions of dollars in its online marketing budget to spend, but you don't. How do you compete with that? You don't. Jacqueline Dooley compares the sizes of various online marketing budgets, and discusses how to make the most of your online advertising spend regardless of the size of your budget.

Internet spending was the fastest growing media segment in 2004, according to this btobonline.com article, which quotes a report released by TNS Media Intelligence. The TNS report reveals that ad spending across all media channels wasn't too shabby, reaching $141.1 billion in 2004, an increase of 9.8 percent over 2003. For online marketing, the numbers are particularly bright. In fact, eMarketer reports that online ad spending increased nearly 40 percent in the first half of 2004.

A 10,000 Foot View of Online Media Spending

So how much of that $141 billion was spent online? According to Searchenginewatch.com, $8.4 billion was spent on online advertising in 2004. That's just under six percent of total advertising dollars spent. This isn't a huge percentage of the overall media spend, but it's a great sign for the online advertising industry. In fact, the same Searchenginewatch.com article reports that online media spending will grow to $16.9 billion by 2009, overtaking magazine advertising by 2007.

This is a strong indication that more and more companies are including online tactics in their media mix. Obviously, the average percentage each company spends on various advertising channels varies greatly. Some companies advertise exclusively on the Internet, while others rely on more traditional sources such as TV and direct mail to reach their audiences. The potential for online media spending to grow to the predicted $16.9 billion lies, in part, with those companies who don't yet realize the potential of reaching consumers online, and thus don't allocate a large portion of their advertising budget to the online space.

It's all relative. If you're Coca Cola, then you may have $10 million to spend online which is, hands down, a BIG e-marketing budget. However, $10 million may only be one percent of your BILLION dollar advertising budget. Small companies, sole proprietorships and the self-employed compose the other end of the spectrum, with budgets limited to a few hundred, possibly a few thousand, dollars a year to spend online.

Most companies fall in between the two, with many mid-sized businesses spending ten to twenty thousand dollars a month online. You can reach a surprisingly large amount of people with a few hundred dollars a year on the Internet, a downright shocking amount of people at $10,000 a month and an obscenely large amount of people at $10 million a year. So how do those of us in the online marketing industry get all companies, large and small, to allocate more advertising dollars to the Web? The trick is to lay out the possibilities.

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