• by August 3, 2000

The leading Internet commerce companies spent an average $29.8 million during the first three months of 2000 to build their online brands and drive additional traffic to their websites, according to The eCommerce Almanac.

The median first quarter sales and marketing budget was $21 million - for an annual run rate of $84 million - compared to $34 million for all of 1999 and only $6 million the previous year. Although the 'dot-com' ad war pushed total spending to new highs among the companies tracked, the share of top-line revenue allocated to sales and marketing actually declined during the quarter by 36% from FY 1999.

The top five sales and marketing budgets among Internet commerce companies for the first three months of 2000 are: E*Trade Group (NASDAQ: EGRP) -- $177.5 million Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) -- $140.1 million Charles Schwab & Company (NYSE: SCH) -- $100.9 million Ameritrade Holding (NASDAQ: AMTD) -- $54.8 million Priceline.com (NASDAQ: PCLN) -- $40.4 million

Offline advertising now accounts for a substantial share of sales and marketing expenditures at the leading Internet commerce companies. The most popular offline media are television, which is used by 75% of companies, followed by radio (68%), consumer periodicals (53%), newspapers (52%) and direct mail (52%).

America Online is the most common online marketing partner; more than one-half of the companies tracked by The eCommerce Almanac have inked marketing deals with one or more AOL properties. Other popular portal partners include Yahoo! and Microsoft's MSN portal. The most popular marketing partners among leading web destinations and services are Netcentives' ClickRewards, Amazon.com, and Giftcertificates.com.

The median customer acquisition cost among companies tracked by The eCommerce Almanac is $78. The largest proportion of companies invest between $10-$49 to acquire each new customer; a slim majority of the companies (51%) invest $100 or less per new customer while approximately one-in-twelve invest $500 or more.

The eCommerce Almanac profiles more than 80 leading B-to-C and B-to-B e-commerce companies, providing details on company size, customers, revenue growth, technologies deployed, online marketing partners, offline presence, management, and principal investors.

The Almanac also provides more than 100 charts and tables covering statistical and benchmarking data for the profiled firms as a group as well as broader Internet commerce trends and developments. Profiled firms include Amazon.com, CDnow, eBay, Eddie Bauer, eToys, E*Trade, Grainger.com, InsWeb, Lands' End, NetB@nk, Toysrus.com, Travelocity.com, Charles Schwab & Company, and many other retailers, industrial suppliers, and financial firms.