The only way is up!

Online ad budgets continued to increase during Q4 last year despite the overall ad market experiencing its biggest drop in almost two years.

The quarterly Bellwether Report from the IPA revealed that as online ad spend grew, traditional media was hit hard by budget cuts and economic concerns.

Chris Williamson, Bellwether report author, said, "The Bellwether survey reveals a marked deterioration in business conditions in the fourth quarter of last year, which companies


responded to by trimming their marketing budgets causing 2007 to finish on the weakest note for two years."

Online now accounts for 9% of the overall ad market, though the figures are the weakest since Q3 2003.

39% of companies revised up online budgets, compared to just 7% that revised down.

Wayne Arnold, European chief executive of Profero, and chairman of IPA Digital, said of the online figures, "The fact that it was the lowest level growth since Q3 2003 illustrates the positive reality that the internet is now core to many clients' marketing needs so unfortunately not entirely immune to the current economic environment".