Adding to my argument for sustainable growth in the online lead generation market…

If you agree with my premise that advertisers are increasingly demanding a shift from CPM to ROI as the effective marketing metric. Then it seems that the Internet Advertising Bureau may have the most compelling statistics:

"The Interactive Advertising Bureau says Internet advertising is a $16.9B per year business; online lead generation is a $1.3B per year business, growing faster than any other type of online advertising."

As quoted from Direct Marketing News, a by line article by Marc Diana, CEO of LeadPoint an Online Lead Exchange.

Update: more support for the mortgage mess increases online advertisement opportunity argument.

Mortgage companies including Countrywide Financial Corp. and IAC/InterActiveCorp’s LendingTree Inc. haven’t cut spending much and are moving ads to the Web from print and TV, analyst Jeffrey Lindsay said in an interview. A 50 percent drop in ads for loans would cut Google and Yahoo’s profit by 1 percent to 3 percent.

"Under economic pressure, advertisers favor online because it’s a lot cheaper, it’s measurable and it gives a higher return on investment," Lindsay said. Almost all of Yahoo’s second- quarter growth in display advertising came from mortgage ads, he estimated. "The biggest beneficiary so far has been Yahoo."

Mortgage companies spent $755 million on Web ads in the year ended June 30, or about 3.4 percent of the U.S. online ad market, Bernstein said. The report doesn’t cover third-quarter spending.

Tags: online lead generation, online advertising, IAB, Interactive Advertising Bureau, leadpoint, marc diana, bill rice, mortgage, marketing, yahoo, google, countrywide, IACA, LendingTree