- Adweek Staff

NEW YORK eMarketer has revised its Internet ad spending projections, estimating that advertisers will spend $24.5 billion online this year in the U.S.

That estimate is slightly lower than the one eMarketer put out in November 2008, which said that U.S. online advertising spending would reach $25.7 billion in 2009. It is important to note that the lowered estimate still represents an increase of 4.5 percent over 2008 spending.

Marketers spend more on Internet ads, while they spend less on advertising placed in other media, such as newspapers, radio and magazines. These spending shifts predate the recession, but the current economic forces both reinforce the new advertising models and make them more permanent.

Marketers can more readily measure the results of Internet advertising than with most traditional media, both during campaigns and after they are completed. Those capabilities help produce more efficient advertising and higher ROI, which in turn push traditional media to compete with lower pricing.

In recent weeks, ad forecasts across almost all media have turned decidedly negative:

"GroupM Projects Ad Slump Will Last Into 2010"

"Grim Forecast for Local Broadcast"

"Carat Lowers Ad Projections"