• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, January 18, 2013

A broad swath of marketing executives expects interactive advertising to continue its strong growth, this year. According to AdMedia Partners and its 19th annual survey of industry leaders, nearly one-half (45%) of respondents believe digital advertising will grow by 10% to 15% in 2013.
 
The median growth rate remained consistent in the last two years at 13%, reports AdMedia, which surveys executives in the fields of advertising, marketing services, digital marketing, marketing technology, media technology, media or digital media.

Industry heads remain bullish about mobile’s prospects. In fact, four in 10 respondents (40%) say they expect to see an increase of at least 20% in mobile. Plus, the majority (53%) expect video ad spending to grow between 10% to 20%, while over one-half (55%) anticipate social ad spending to grow between 10% and 20%.
 
For its research, the company surveyed more than 7,400 domestic and international executives late last year -- 52% of whom identified themselves as being in the “services/marketing or media technology” fields; 16% of whom said they were in the “content” business; while 32% checked the “multiple/other business” box.
 
Also boding well for business, more than four in 10 (43%) respondents said they believe the economy will be stronger in 2013 -- up from 36% in 2012, according to AdMedia.
 
Over one-third (36%) expect the economy to remain the same in the coming year -- a notable decrease from 57% in 2012 -- while about a one-fifth (21%) believe the economy will be weaker in 2013, which actually represents an increase of 14 percentage points year-over-year.
 
Respondents in the content sector were more polarized on economic expectations, with larger groups in both the stronger and weaker categories than services/other respondents.
 
Separately, there is no shortage of interest in mergers and acquisitions within the marketing industry. Indeed, almost two-thirds (63%) of respondents claim they were approached by would-be buyers in 2012.
 
As for 2013, an overwhelming majority (81%) of respondents said they think M&A by strategic buyers will increase, while 46% said M&A driven by financial buyers will rise.
 
In fact, the vast majority of respondents (88%) at companies with at least $50 million in revenues said they plan to seek an acquisition target, this year. The primary rationale that 59% of respondents gave for such plans was to develop new services and product offerings.
 
For services firms, the top areas of interest for expansion or acquisition remain consistent with last year: mobile  (67% of respondents want to buy their way into the sector), while 66% expressed interest in analytics, 64% said social was on their menus.
 
The percent of respondents interested in these sectors declined slightly since last year. AdMedia pointed to the fact that these areas were actively developed last year, and the possibility that some buyers were less than satisfied with their investments.
 
The sector that lost the most interest was search marketing, according to AdMedia. Last year, 50% of respondents expressed interest in the sector; this year, just 32% said they were excited about search.
 
For content firms, the highest levels of interest were in digital media (69%), custom content (60%), app development (56%) and user-generated content (56%). As in the services sectors, however, there was an overall decline in interest in the various content sectors.