NEW YORK—In what a research firm calls “an unlikely development, B2B digital advertising spend is leading a recovery charge in 2020, with projected growth of 22.6 percent over last year, according to a recent forecast by the firm eMarketer. “The disappearance of in-person events, and a pause in the use of traditional tactics, has led to significant digital growth – especially in the health care, tech and financial services categories,” the eMarketer forecast noted.

Business-to-business marketers, often criticized for being laggards, have sprinted ahead when it comes to digital ad spend, The Drum newsletter reported.

According to eMarketer, B2B digital ad spend will hit $8.14 billion this year, an increase of 22.6 percent. Comparatively, U.S. digital advertising spend, as a whole, will only rise 1.7 percent this year, to $134.7 billion.

Long reliant on events and traditional channels, “the conditions of Covid-19 are really forcing B2B marketers to realize that they need to accelerate their transformation into digital,” Jillian Ryan, eMarketer’s principal analyst covering B2B and marketing transformation at Insider Intelligence, said in the forecast.

Search, virtual event sponsorships, podcasts and spending on LinkedIn are replacing TV, print, out-of-home and in-person events, Ryan said. In fact, LinkedIn will secure one-fifth of all B2B ad dollars in 2020. “They are the supreme social network in terms of share.”

However, the surge in these digital platforms and tactics will not prevent overall B2B ad spending in the United States from falling 9.6 percent to $21.4 billion. Nevertheless, eMarketer said it is “bullish for 2021,” with an expected 20.4 percent increase to $25.8 billion in B2B ad spending.

Digital ad spend is pegged to rise to $9.03 billion. “The assumption is that when the world starts to normalize, B2B budgets will start to normalize as well,” Ryan said.