• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, December 13, 2005

The B-to-B media marketplace appears to be staging a turnaround, continuing to build momentum and posting its best ad page growth to date in October. Ad page volume rose 2.72 percent over October 2004, according to estimates released Monday by the Business Information Network (BIN). That's a much better story than consumer magazine counterparts, which reported a 2.1 percent decline in October, and a 1.0 percent decline in November.

All but seven of the 22 B-to-B ad categories tracked by BIN, a unit of American Business Media (ABM) posted ad page gains in October, especially banking/financial (+24 percent), environment/utilities (+17 percent) and automotive (+10 percent).

Even the moribund high tech category appears to be gaining some momentum, or at least is beginning to show much lower rates of erosion than it has since the tech bubble burst in 2001. Ad pages in the computer-related category were down only 2 percent in October vs. a year-to-date decline of 5 percent. While tech publishing category watcher United Business Media, owner of CMP Media, has not published a sector analysis since the first quarter of this year, when the tech advertising market declined 5.6 percent, some individual titles have been reporting strong gains. On Monday, International Data Group's Computerworld magazine reported its best issue since 2000, and said its total ad pages for 2005 are up nearly 10 percent through the same period in 2004.

Gordon Hughes, president-CEO of ABM, said the upturn in B-to-B ad spending was "anticipated," noting that "print media continues to gain ground as the economy improves." More significantly, he noted that business publishers are utilizing more of a "multi-platform approach," including digital, online and event-related marketing that is also growing the industry's base.