• by Julia Dudnik Stern , April 2, 2010

Every month brings new evidence of advertising, marketing and communications budgets steadily moving in the direction of the Internet, with predictions that 2010 will see digital spending surpass print.

Consulting and research group Outsell surveyed over 1,000 advertisers and marketers in December. The company found that $119.6 billion, or 32.5% of the planned 2010 U.S. ad spending of $368 billion, is destined for digital media. The 30.3% going to print advertising is lower by more than $8 billion.

Granted, these are only predictions -- but this tipping point has been predicted for some time. It is now a matter of when, not if. Even in the tough economic climate, digital remains the one area of aggressive budgetary increases.

Econsultancy and ExactTarget recently released Marketing Budgets 2010: Effectiveness, Measurements and Allocation Report. While only 46% of the surveyed 1,000 marketers planned to increase their overall budgets, 66% were upping digital spending. This relationship held on the decreasing end, too: 13% were cutting overall budgets, but only 4% said they planned to curtail digital spending.

The money is apparently not just going online, it is staying there. Outsell predicts that U.S. businesses will invest $63 billion in company Web sites this year. The remaining half of U.S. digital dollars is destined for display and search advertising, as well as direct email marketing.

Most analysts agree that the primary reason for the digital shift is the ability to track marketing efforts more precisely. While online advertisers have been able to tie pay to performance, the same cost-tied-to-value paradigm is a long way from trickling down to online image uses.