Spending on total US advertising and marketing will grow 3.9 percent in 2008 to reach $412.4 billion, with the advertising portion reaching $249.1 billion, according to the third annual ad spending report by Outsell, Inc., which said growth has declined from 2007's 5.8 percent, MarketingCharts reports.

The report covers five key media types: online, print, events, TV/radio and others. Outsell surveyed 1,088 US advertisers on their spending plans for the year.

Among the significant findings:

• Companies are spending 61.8 percent of their online ad/marketing budgets - $65.1 billion - on their own sites, siphoning dollars away from other options. As a result, publishers are beginning to offer their own advertising/marketing services to recapture lost revenue.
• The fastest-growing of all ad types is online, which is expected to grow 12.3 percent in 2008 to $105.3 billion (or $40.2 billion excluding advertisers' spending on their own sites). As a result, online spending now exceeds TV/radio/movies for the first time ($98.5 billion).

MarketingCharts has a few more tidbits of data from the study.