Search is where BtoB gets done.

Patricia Hursh of SmartSearch Marketing posed a good article over in Search Engine Land “Solving B-to-B Marketers' Problems”.

She discusses the all the things we battle on a daily basis but also reminds us that search is where BtoB awareness and consideration gets done. She wites:

"Do executives and senior managers use search engines? The answer is an unequivocal YES. Several years ago Forbes published a survey entitled A Day in the Life of CEOs Online. The survey looked at Web usage of CEOs and senior-level managers at enterprise companies with 1,000 or more employees. More than one thousand executives participated in the survey. The survey results point to strong C-level use of the Internet and search engines.

• 49 percent consider the Internet the single most important source of information on business
• 54 percent conduct online researches
• 34 percent say they go to the Web first to find information on a product or service
• 86 percent use search engines "

eMarketer.com - eMarketer's 10 Key Predictions for 2007:
JANUARY 2, 2007

"What to watch for in 2007....

• Online Ad Spending Will Hit $20 Billion
• Some Money and Lots of Hype for Online Video Advertising
• Social Networks Are Set for a $1 Billion Windfall
• Downloadable Games Will Get Hotter
• Thirty-Seven Million Strong: A 'Minority' Bigger than Canada
• Mobile TV Arrives
• US B2C E-Commerce Will Cruise Past $200 Billion
• The Retail Power of Word-of-Mouth
• Broadband Services Will Matter as Much as Speed
• DVRs Pump Up TV Viewing"
  

From Research Brief:

"eMarketer, in its year-end overview, writes:

• Total US spending on Internet advertising will reach at least $19.5 billion in 2007. This is 19% more than total spending in 2006. (Though) this rate of growth is sharply down from the 30% or more that has been the norm for several years, (and) the total US advertising spending projected to grow by 1.4% in 2007, the shift to the Internet is set to maintain its momentum in 2007.
  
  
  
  
  

  US Online Ad Spending (billion dollars)
  Year	Online Ad Spend
  2004	$9.6
  2005	12.5
  2006	16.4
  2007	19.5
  2008	23.8
  Source: eMarketer, December 2006

  
  
  
• eMarketer projects that spending on Online Video Advertising will total $775 million in 2007, which represents only 4.0% of projected US online ad spending. Although marketers are increasingly keen on including video in their online ad campaigns, they will continue to face a shortage of appropriate premium placements.
• Worldwide ad spending on online social networks should top $1 billion in 2007, up from an estimated $445 million this year. Fueling this growth will be factors such as international expansion, "niche" networks, and search technology to MySpace from Google.
• Digital downloading of video games will take off in 2007, and by 2010 this distribution method will account for 22% of all worldwide game software revenues. Video-on-demand (VOD) marketers may find their skills in demand for promoting these platforms.
• The number of African-American and Hispanic Internet users in the US will rise to 37 million, from 35 million in 2006. This market will continue to grow faster than the total US online population for several more years.
• Mobile TV took its first baby steps in 2006 with professional content. In 2007 a crucial element will be added to the mobile-TV mix: user-generated content (CGC). Given the impact the Web equivalent of this development has had in 2006, advertisers and marketers are likely to face a dizzying array of new choices.
• US B2C online sales will comfortably pass the $200 billion mark in 2007, reaching a new record total, which eMarketer projects will be $223 billion. Online retail sales will account for $132 billion of this, with online travel accounting for $91 billion. A significant force driving online travel sales is the demand from relatively affluent baby boomers.
• A recent study, from market research firm Compete, found that consumers were more likely to be swayed by CGC (consumer generated content) than by information coming directly from brand advertisers and marketers.
• Now broadband is about value-added services and is driven by providers bundling voice, video and data together. Services such as voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) are approaching the 30% penetration range. eMarketer predicts that one in four broadband households in 2007 will subscribe to a VoIP service, rising to nearly 40% of broadband households by 2010.
• More people will watch more TV and video content in the future, not less, in spite of digital video recorders (DVRs) and video-on-demand (VOD). They will just be doing so in different ways: via the TV, the Internet, the PC and their portable devices. eMarketer predicts that VOD will be in 30% of US TV households by the end of 2007 and that DVRs will be in 30% of TV households by 2009."

Holiday E-Commerce Sales Surpass $23B - 12/29/2006
Media Post - by Mark Walsh, Friday, Dec 29, 2006 6:00 AM ET

ONLINE HOLIDAY SPENDING IN 2006 increased 26% over last year to $23.11 billion for the nearly two-month period ending Dec. 26, according to data released Thursday by comScore Networks. A late surge of Internet shopping in the week before Christmas--a 38% jump over the year-earlier period--helped push the total to new levels.

'That online retail consumer spending for the year-to-date has surpassed the $100 billion mark is a testament to the continued growth and strength of the online marketplace,' said Gian Fulgoni, chairman of comScore Networks, in a prepared statement. He added that retail e-commerce now accounts for 7% of U.S. consumer retail spending, excluding gas, autos and food.

Amazon led all retailers in online holiday sales, followed by Dell.com, Yahoo.com, Walmart.com and Ticketmaster.com. BestBuy.com, Walmart.com and Ticketmaster.com posted the biggest gains over last year, with each site increasing sales by more than 50%.

E-commerce sales growth was fueled mainly by buying in big-ticket and popular gift categories including jewelry and watches (up 67%), video games (64%) video game consoles (63%), event tickets (55%), and consumer electronics (39%).

The 26% increase in 2006 online holiday sales is just slightly more than the 24% gain in e-commerce activity during the rest of the year. Web retail sales from January to October increased from $62.6 billion to $77.5 billion, according to comScore."

US Online Retail Breaks a Record...Again
An all-time record for online sales in one day was set on November 27 when US online sales totaled $608 million. That record has already been broken.




Though this total is impressive, the record has already been broken.

According to comScore Networks, a mere one week later, on Monday, December 4, a new record for spending in a single day was established, as consumers opened their wallets online to the tune of $647 million. This was 26% higher than the total on the corresponding day of last year and it is $39 million more than the total spent on Cyber Monday."

eMarketer.com - Online Ad Spending to Outpace Overall Ad Market Growth

DECEMBER 8, 2006

Internet advertising continues to gain on other ad categories.


ZenithOptimedia forecasts that global Internet advertising spending will grow by 28.2% in 2007, at the same time ad spending in other media will grow by only 3.9% — in other words, online ad spending will grow seven times faster.


This disparity speaks volumes about the ongoing seismic shift in the world of advertising. However, the shift to the Internet among US marketers is even more dramatic. eMarketer's latest ad spending projections were released on Wednesday (see Internet Advertising Will Weather a Sluggish Economy). These put growth in US online ad spending at 18.9% in 2007, within an entire advertising industry set to grow by only 1.4%."

Online Advertising in Japan

eMarketer looks at online advertising in Japan, one of the world's most "connected" markets.

As in many countries with an experienced online population, and borne out by recent data from Video Research Ltd., internet usage in Japan is higher than usage of all other types of media besides television.