It is estimated that B2B marketing projects accounted for just 11% of all US online adspend in 2001. Denise Garcia, the author of the study, places particular blame on web portals and major publishers for failing to find the means to segment their audiences.
“B2B marketers say they are not spending their budgets to advertise because most sites have broad appeal and cannot identify the specific markets they are targeting,” Garcia wrote.
She also noted that the majority of 2001 B2B marketing spend went on customer retention, via extranets and internal communications, rather than customer acquisition.
However, the report acknowledges that some web publishers are offering non-advertising services such as webcasting, extranet development and web hosting which will enable segmentation to occur. Garcia is also encouraged by the increasing use of larger ads, rich media and other marketing formats which appeal to B2B clients.
If good practice is allowed to spread, GartnerG2 predicts that B2B online ad spending will total $3.42 billion by 2005, equivalent to 22% of the entire market.
