Direct marketers on average expected to devote slightly more money to acquisition in 2008, after a mostly equal focus on prospecting and retention in 2007.
The lukewarm results for planned direct marketing spending overall belie a positive outlook for online marketing in particular.
Many respondents said they planned to increased spending on specific online marketing tactics, including e-mail (87%), SEO (72%), SEM (68%), direct mail (63%) and advertising on outside Web sites (62%).
Direct marketers said that e-mail was second in ROI only to direct mail when used for customer acquisition. E-mail was judged as best for customer retention.
Previous studies have also noted marketers are likely to cut spending on other media before using the budget knife on online marketing.
"At its core, Internet advertising remains oriented more toward direct response objectives than branding goals, with about two-thirds of overall spending going to direct response formats," said David Hallerman, senior analyst at eMarketer. "The Internet's nature as an interactive medium makes direct response more effective than with any of the other measured media."
In a July 2007 study, McKinsey McKinsey found that 43% of marketers surveyed worldwide said that they used the Internet for direct response, including retention.
