Online advertising overtakes traditional media

Small and medium businesses in the US are now more likely to advertise online than in traditional media, shows a new study from the US.

Research from The Kelsey Group and Constat and reported on Digital Media shows that for the first time online advertising has overtaken traditional media.

About 77% of US SMEs used online for advertising in August 2009 compared with just 69% that used traditional media. A year before 73% advertised online while 74% used traditional media.

Steve Marshall, director of research at The Kelsey Group, says the milestone of digital/online surpassing traditional media among SMEs is an indicator of the broad shift to online platforms.

Though more SMEs used digital advertising, the majority of their budgets still found its way to traditional media, with only 36.8% of SMEs’ advertising budgets going toward online. However, that was up more than 14 percentage points over the prior year.

There is no comparable data for Australian SMEs. The closest may well come from the 2009 Sensis ebusiness report that shows that 24% of SMEs currently use the internet for marketing activities (including advertising on websites and portals). A further 8% are expected to start in 2010.