William Blair & Company Interactive Marketing Survey.

William Blair & Company, in collaboration with the Chicago Interactive Marketing Association, published the second edition of a semiannual interactive marketing survey that the partnership uses to take the pulse of the industry and relay its practitioners’ expectations for future performance and trends.

The survey targets the more than 400 members of CIMA, which was founded in 1997 and emphasizes cross-media outreach through an extensive itinerary of forums, panels, and seminars with industry experts, in addition to networking events. The second survey includes responses from about 120 members.

The inaugural survey included 16 multiple-choice and 3 open-ended questions, and the second survey was expanded to 25 and 5, respectively,with 13 questions remaining constant. All responses are anonymous.

William Blair equity research analyst Troy Mastin, who provides coverage on 20 marketing, advertising, and media companies, wrote in the survey, “All respondents indicated that they expect online marketing budgets to increase in 2006, with average expected growth of close to 20% (up from 19%). On average, responses indicated that prices increased by about 8.4% (up from 7.3%) during the first half of 2006.”

Mastin also noted that click fraud remains a concern but appears stable. A majority of respondents (64%) did not identify click fraud as a big threat to the long-term viability of search engine marketing, while 36% see it as a threat.

He also noted that consistent with last survey, brand advertising spending appears to be shifting out of traditional media and onto the Internet. Rich media and “other” forms of online advertising were selected by 45% of respondents as the fastest growing, up from 43% last survey, while search declined from 38% to 34%. Also, 51% of respondents indicated that traditional advertisers would be most responsible for growth, well ahead of the second choice of emerging advertisers at 24%.

The survey also showed a mixed outlook for Yahoo, Google’s continued dominance, and MSN slipping. “Despite aggressive investment by competition, Google continues to gain market and mind share, as 69% of respondents (up from 53%) characterized Google as the best-positioned major player,” Mastinadded. “While our open-ended questions revealed optimism regarding Yahoo’s search platform enhancement initiative (Project Panama) and a community that seems to be rooting for the company, only 22% characterized Yahoo asbest positioned, down from 30% last survey. The overwhelming view of MSN was either negative or that of indifference, which is surprising given the recent launch of adCenter.”