Companies are spending more on digital marketing today than ever before, especially on custom content.

Business owners have heard a lot about content marketing over the past year – Is the practice here to stay? Does it actually produce higher revenue streams? Am I the only brand in my field not creating custom content for the web? These questions were voiced in a hefty percentage of American companies, and recent reports from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and Custom Content Council show a high-volume of these organizations took the next step and invested in the practice this year.

Digital ad spend reaches new height in Q3 2012

IAB 2012 spendingAccording to IAB, internet advertising revenues in the United States totaled $9.26 billion for the third quarter of 2012. This monetary uptick makes Q3 the biggest on record in terms of ad spend and an 18 percent year-over-year climb compared to Q3 2011. More, the uptick marks a 6 percent quarter-over-quarter increase from Q2 2012.

“These historic investments in interactive point to the strong results that marketers are receiving from digital marketing,” President and CEO of IAB Randall Rothenberg said. “It is a highly effective medium for interacting and engaging consumers, who are no longer passive, but are active participants in contemporary media online, through social media, and on-the-go with mobile.”

Content marketing spend on the rise

Content creation requires time and money, but its benefits certainly provide marketers with noticeable ROI. According to the CCC, the total spent on branded content per company increased in 2012 when compared to the two previous years. Content spend reached $1,725,736 – up from $1,640,107 – with electronic and other forms of content marketing showing new highs. What’s more, the CCC notes the average total branded content outsourcing spend leveled off at $371,364. Brands that outsourced exclusively allocated $9,987,417 on custom content.

While CCC’s data includes spending on a variety of content types, from digital to print, the Content Marketing Institute provides supplementary percentages of how many B2B and B2C companies will increase their content budgets in 2013. The data shows that 55 percent of B2C and 54 percent of B2B brands will increase their budgets overall. Of those brands boosting content spend, 10 percent of B2C and 9 percent of B2B plan to allocate significantly more funding toward branded content in 2013.

Ted Karczewski is an Executive Communications Associate at Brafton. He works to develop his own voice and apply his passions to the evolving world of SEO and content marketing, but he doesn't shy away from writing for fun. After graduating from Suffolk University, Ted used his Communications degree to test out Sports Journalism before Marketing at Brafton.