This year will prove that internet advertising will do better than any other platform which companies utilise to showcase their services, it has been stated.

Assistant director at PricewaterhouseCoopers Eva Berg-Winters said that 2009 will still prove to be a tough year for anybody wanting to advertise due to the financial atmosphere, although small businesses in IT may be better placed than most due to their expertise in online affairs.

If revenue from advertising remains flat, she stated, it will be a successful year for the industry, although internet-based ads will do considerably better than other mediums.

Ms Berg-Winters asserted: "People are spending more time online, especially during the week but also on the weekends. Our media consumption is changing and that is of course also driving ad dollars."

According to the last bi-annual report on online expenditure by the Internet Advertising Bureau, it was found that total spending on advertising fell by 3.5 per cent in 2008 to £17.5 billion, though the internet now accounts for 19.2 per cent of this, rising from 15.5 per cent in 2007.

In a recent survey of SMEs for Connect, the two most important benefits of outsourcing were guaranteed response times and allowing in-house IT staff to concentrate on more strategic issues.