• by Masha Geller , August 8, 2001

The Jupiter Online Advertising show officially began in New York today, and the newswires are already humming with new releases. Here's a quick synopsis.

First off, what would a Jupiter show be without an optimistic Jupiter forecast, right? Their newest offering says that online advertising will account for 7% of the total advertising market in 2006 - up from 3% in 2001. The Jupiter Internet Advertising Model shows that financial services companies will account for the most online ad spending by 2006 - a total of $2.1 billion. Automotive and media companies will be the next largest online ad spenders, accounting for $2 billion and $1.6 billion, respectively.

Interestingly enough, Jupiter says pay-for-performance spending will account for just 22% of all online ad spending in 2001 and will only increase to 30% by 2006. Jupiter analysts warned that the cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) model is not dead and advise that the misuse of pay-per- performance will result in its return as publishers fail to meet advertiser demand.

Moving on, 24/7 Media unveiled the results of their latest study of benchmarks, best practices and attitudes toward online advertising, which found that marketing managers with more than six years of experience were more optimistic about the future of the online industry than their more junior colleagues. These more tenured managers anticipate a greater growth of online marketing budgets in 2001. The study also suggests that interactive marketing has matured from a testing or "trial by error" phase into a building phase where decision makers grow budgets based on past campaign successes. Significantly, over two-thirds of the respondents expect to increase their online budgets over the next 12 months.

Also of interest, personalized rich media email marketers Dynamics Direct introduced a groundbreaking campaign Performance Guarantee program today, which, as they put it, makes it virtually risk-free for marketers to deploy a rich media email campaign. The program guarantees that a Dynamics Direct rich media email campaign will enjoy double the response rate (as measured by click-through) of a text or HTML control group. The guarantee applies to retention or house-list campaigns only.

And, last but not least, online ad network Engage warned investors today that its parent CMGI will not be renewing its $50 million loan, which means that Engage is forced to undertake more cost-cutting, and is "aggressively considering a range of strategic alternatives," according to Engage president and chief executive Tony Nuzzo. Nevertheless, the company today unveiled AdManager 5.5, an enhanced version of its advertising management software for Web publishers. The new version boasts increased targeting and performance measurement capabilities, "helping to provide advertisers higher returns on their Internet advertising investment."

I'll be stopping by the booths tomorrow to get more details on all of this, so stay tuned.