• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, September 25, 2007

As the only growth market in the world of media and marketing, online ad spending will expand 28.6% this year, according to eMarketer CEO Geoff Ramsey. Next year, digital ad spending will increase 32%--amounting to nearly $28.8 billion, Ramsey said in his opening remarks at OMMA New York on Monday morning.

The future? Branded and video advertising, said Ramsey, assuring that branding dollars are fast on their way to matching the budgets spent on search.

"With video, you can do a heck of a lot better job of storytelling," he said.

Now big business, Web videos are watched by 72% of Web users--or 135 million people--every month. Ad spending around them is set to hit $775 million this year, and $1.3 billion by next year.

With YouTube in tow, Google is poised to lead the burgeoning video market, and grab the bulk of ad dollars flowing into the medium, according to Ramsey.

What are the greatest challenges facing online marketers today? Audience fragmentation; ad clutter; consumers' eroding trust in marketers; and something Ramsey likes to call "trend-itis"--or the propensity for marketers to blindly follow trends without implementing proper checks and balances.

Ramsey spent a good portion of the morning knocking various research firms and the industry at large. TNS Media Intelligence, he noted with disbelief, has yet to factor search into its online ad spending numbers.

As things stand, 76% of marketers say ad agencies don't provide them with sufficient data on ROI. Most marketers, said Ramsey, express a "vague undercurrent of discontent with their agencies."

Additionally, nearly a fifth of consumers (18%) report that they dislike all forms of advertising, while only 6% currently believe the claims made by marketers.