Market research group IDC said today that internet advertising could fall by as much as 5% in the 1st quarter of 2009, which would be the first contraction in online ad spending, since the dot com bubble burst in 2001.
IDC analyst Karsten Weide also said the U.S. Internet ad market could get worse in the second quarter before the situation improves in the second half of the year.
IDC previously forecast a 10% growth in online ads for 2009.
Weide said IDC’s revised outlook reflects results from the group’s upcoming 4th quarter Internet ad report, which shows U.S. Internet advertising sales were much worse than anticipated, up just 0.4% to $7.13 billion.
My thoughts: not shocked that it could go down for Q1. As a generalization, right now everyone is pulling back dollars from everywhere right now. But long term, maybe as soon as Q2 its going to go up again as online advertising is the clear answer when compared to old media. And like it or not companies will still have to advertise if they want new customers. I think this down economy is just what we needed to knock old media out of the minds of advertisers. Lets hope Google, yahoo, and all the big boys start putting some marketing dollars of their own into getting the attention of the advertisers.
In today’s Lowdown at the DNJournal, ad dollars are to increase compared to traditional media spending.