Report: Interactive marketing to reach 21% of marketing spend by 2014

Boston Interactive marketing expenditures will reach $55 billion by 2015, accounting for 21% of all marketing spending, according to a new forecast released Wednesday by Forrester Research.

The absolute dollar expenditures are essentially the same as one the research firm released in April. But Forrester revised interactive marketing's share of total advertising spending, reflecting the downward shift in expenditures for other media since then. 

Of the 200 marketers surveyed, 60% said they would fund an increase to their interactive marketing budget by shifting money away from traditional marketing.

The greatest growth area for interactive is projected to come from social media, which is forecast to rise to $3.113 billion in 2014 from $716 million this year. The next biggest growth sector will be mobile marketing, which is expected to rise to $1.274 billion in 2014 from $391 million this year.

While search, display and e-mail marketing will continue to grow at double-digit rates over the next five years, their rate of growth is slowing, and will account for a smaller percentage of the interactive marketing stimulus, according to Forrester's estimates.