eMarketer reports on a survey by Aquent that finds anywhere from 50 to 80 percent of Fortune 500 marketing departments are planning on hiring this year. (The percentage varies by region: East Coast is 50%, while the South is 80%.)

More than half of these companies (52 percent) expect spending on Internet marketing to increase in 2006. That seems like a low number, but it’s a significant increase from 29 percent in 2005.

Oddly, data analysis is one of two areas in which the expectation of a spending increase in 2006 is less than it was in 2005. (Project management is the other.) It seems that given the ever-increasing mountains of data companies are gathering on their customers, marketing departments should want to mine that data deeper than ever before.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 29th, 2006 at 6:00 am and is filed under Marketing Stuff.