Gordon Borrell, who oversees the Borrell Associates research and consulting firm, is asserting that the online advertising business is much larger than most believe.
Borrell recently suggested that e-mail advertising alone could top $12 billion within a few years, a number well beyond anyone else's estimates.
"Are we nuts?" Borrell asks. Well, he defends himself by suggesting his methodology is more about ground-up understanding of the spending, not the revenues, in the industry. The revenue-based approach essentially tallies what the major recipients get, but there is a larger story out there of advertising on smaller sites.
He calculates, too, that there are countless smaller companies advertising below the radar.
"The amount advertisers are spending is truly stunning, and much larger than most people imagine. Those who understand the true breadth of opportunity are more likely (in my humble opinion) to get a larger share than those who underestimate it," he writes.