B2B spending on online advertising expected to rise in 2018

Estimates from eMarketer calculate B2B companies spent $4.07 billion on online advertising in 2017. In 2018, the spending is expected to increase 13 percent to 4.6 billion. Across the board, companies are pouring more money into technologies that allow them to place advertisements where their customers are. While traditional media still has a place in advertising, consumers have transitioned an increasing portion on their lives online and businesses have followed.

While the 13 percent increase in online advertising spending is in the double digits, 2018’s predicted spending growth is the lowest in recent history. The percent change in spending from 2014 to 2015 was the largest with 19.7 percent. However, the B2B industry has maintained an online advertising spending growth of roughly 16 percent since 2013.

US Digital B2B Ad Spending 2013-2018

When compartmentalized by technology, desktops/laptops and mobile have similar shares of the online advertising spending from U.S. B2B businesses. According to a study conducted by eMarketer, desktops and laptops took up $2.54 billion whereas spending for mobile devices was $1.53 billion. When analyzing B2B online advertisement buying budgets, AdWeek discovered they’ve grown by 111 percent over the last five years.

However, while online advertising has had double digit growth for years, many B2B businesses still prefer other traditional and time-tested methods of advertisement. Ytel, a communications company, conducted a survey which asked 2,000 B2B businesses their preferred outreach tool.

Online advertising was the least popular answer tied with direct mail at 7 percent each. Email was the most popular answer with 39 percent.

Dirxion online catalogs give B2B businesses another avenue in an omnichannel marketing approach and allows them to capitalize on the rise of the B2B e-commerce market. For B2B businesses with many catalogs spanning multiple departments of their company, Dirxion’s bookshelf feature organizes the individual catalogs on a central landing page and integrates cross-catalog searching. Existing e-commerce platforms can be integrated into the catalog or B2B businesses can employ the Dirxion order form feature to generate a request for a quote.