• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, March 13, 2008

Spending among the top online mortgage advertisers fell again in February, according to new monthly data released by Nielsen Online's AdRelevance service.

Total online spending among the top 10 mortgage advertisers dropped from $140 million in January to $113 million in February according to Nielsen, whose data includes CPM-based advertising but not search, e-mail or cost-per-click buys.

The $27 million drop is more than double the $12 million mortgage spending decrease of the prior month.

And among the top 10 advertisers online last month, only two were mortgage-related--NexTag and Experian Group Ltd--compared to five in November and three in January. Dropping out of the top ranks last month was troubled mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Group, which had already cut spending to $13.4 million in January from $38.3 million in December.

Comparison shopping site NexTag--which also provides mortgage leads--held onto the No.1 spot, even while reducing its online spend modestly to $58.9 million from $65.5 million in January. No.2 Experian Group, which owns mortgage lead-generation site LowerMyBills.com, likewise cut back advertising to $54.1 million from $61 million.

The $113 million total in mortgage ad spending among the top advertisers is the lowest amount going back to at least last June, based on the Nielsen data.

The continuing slide in mortgage ad dollars may reflect deepening turmoil in the mortgage and financial sectors that has now spread to the broader economy. Earlier this week, the Federal Reserve announced plans to inject up to $200 billion in liquidity into financial markets to allow financial institutions to trade mortgage debt for more secure Treasury bills.

Of the $2.7 billion in financial services spending online, about $900 million comes from mortgage ads. Oppenheimer & Co. last fall lowered its estimate for the Internet ad sector in 2008 by $447 million to $25.3 million because of expected cutbacks in mortgage-related ad spending.