Sharvanboskirk [Posted by Shar VanBoskirk]

I dedicate this blog post to anyone who has read Forrester's interactive marketing forecast and thought, "well that's great, but how are interactive marketers in *my* industry spending on interactive tools." I've just published the US Interactive Marketing Forecast By Industry, 2009 to 2014 which splices our interactive marketing forecast by 12 different industries including:

Retail and wholesale trade
Financial services
Lead generation
B2B
Travel
High-tech
Automotive
Heath and pharmaceuticals
Consumer goods
Media and entertainment
Telecom
And an "other" category which includes primarily education, government and non-profit businesses

A few takeaways from the research:

Direct marketers spend the most, but brand advertisers have the most growth potential.  Look for the steepest growth to come from traditional advertisers who are under invested in interactive marketing today.

Advertisers should benchmark against their own peer set.  Industry benchmarks are helpful (the report includes some per-company budget estimates for different industries).  But don't presume your interactive budget should always match industry averages. We recommend adjusting your spend according to how online you business model and your customers are.

Stay tuned for deeper dives into retail, financial services, consumer goods and travel interactive spend in subsequent pieces of research.