WebProNews

People who specialize in interactive marketing hardly have to worry about whether the recession has damaged their industry, according to new data from Forrester Research.  Indeed, it looks like the field of interactive marketing is set to thrive, even as offline aspects may be de-emphasized.

Forrester predicts that about $25.6 billion will be spent on interactive (display, email, mobile, search, social media) this year.  It's supposed to represent 12 percent of all ad spend, which is respectable enough.

But by the time 2014 rolls around, Forrester predicts that roughly $55.0 billion will go towards interactive marketing efforts.  And that may represent as much as 21 percent of all ad spend for the year as overall advertising budgets decline.

Shar VanBoskirk reasons in a post on the Forrester Blog, "With dollars moving out of traditional media toward less expensive and more efficient interactive tools, marketers will actually need less money to accomplish their current advertising goals."

Or, to look at the shift in a slightly less measured way, the executive summary of VanBoskirk's report also refers to the "cannibalization of traditional media."

Regardless, though, it looks like some interesting changes will be afoot in the advertising industry.