According to Alterian’s transatlantic annual survey of more than 500 US direct marketers, marketing services providers and agencies, eighty-five percent of respondents expect their online direct marketing expenditures to increase in 2007. The spending projection is the largest expected increase since the Alterian Annual Survey began in 2003.

The survey findings show a strong bias towards email marketing and customized landing pages for the subscriber. About 94 percent of respondents who said they will decrease offline spending said they will increase online spending while 70 percent of respondents said they apply basic or no analysis to any of their email campaigns.

The overall results are not entirely unexpected considering the strong momentum in online marketing growth but lack of analysis is a bit disturbing considering there are fewer missing data points & grey areas with online marketing than offline. Perhaps, most of the industry is just following each other than researching a bit more and spending wisely than increasing the frequency & speed of email newsletters.

A full copy of the results can be obtained by emailing  at annualsurvey@alterian.com.