Interactive and search marketing set for growth

Investment in interactive and search marketing is set to increase over the course of the next five years, according to a new report.

A study from Forrester has forecast that US spend on interactive marketing will rise from $18.4 billion this year to $61.3 billion in 2012.

That represents a compound annual growth rate of 27 per cent, with the proportion of total ad spend taken up by interactive predicted to rise to 18 per cent from eight per cent in the same period.

"As firms continue to make customer centricity a higher priority, they will recognise that maintaining separate marketing teams to manage different sets of channels that all target the same customers makes no sense," said Shar VonBoskirk from the analysis firm.

Spending on search marketing will hit $8.1 billion in 2007, according to the report, followed by online display at $6.1 billion and email at $2.7 billion.

The study forecast that search marketing expenditure will achieve a compound annual growth rate of 26 per cent to reach $25 billion by 2012.