• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, February 10, 2005

Web publishers expect so-called "traditional" marketers to spend 20 percent more in online advertising this year than they did in 2004, according to a study released Wednesday by Advertising.com.

For the report, Advertising.com's second annual interactive publisher survey, online marketing research company InsightExpress surveyed Advertising.com's 1,000 publisher members in December; 11 percent responded.

The respondents predicted, on average, that traditional marketers would account for 26 percent of online ad dollars this year, up from 22 percent in 2004. The report defined traditional advertisers as those whose core business is rooted in the brick-and-mortar world, even if they also sell products online, said Advertising.com researcher Lauren Weinberg. For example, Advertising.com considers a company such as Dell Computer to be traditional, although it sells directly to consumers online. Non- traditional companies include pure-play Internet businesses, such as Yahoo!, said Weinberg.

Almost half of the survey respondents--45 percent--said that traditional advertisers would account for at least one-quarter of online ad spending. That group of respondents also indicated that they have more rich media capabilities than the publishers who anticipate a lesser share of ad dollars from traditional companies. On average, 80 percent of the publishers that expected more traditional advertising said their Web sites supported rich media, while just 69 percent of all respondents reported the same.

Publishers also reported a decreasing supply of pop-up and pop-under inventory, largely because of the growing number of consumers who use browsers that block such ads, said Weinberg. Interactive agency Avenue A/Razorfish made a similar conclusion in a report issued last month.

Still, 17 percent of the publishers that responded to Advertising.com's survey reported that they expected pop-ups and pop-unders to generate more revenue for their sites than any other form of online ad.

About nine out of 10 respondents--87 percent--said their sites supported banner ads; 60 percent had pop-up and pop-under capabilities; 51 percent supported contextual ads; 27 percent were capable of streaming content; and 24 percent supported behavioral targeting.