eMarketer predicts that automakers will spend $2.69 billion on online in advertising in 2007 - or 14 percent of the $19.5 billion total that will be spent online by advertisers in 2007, MediaPost reports.

Some 23 percent of automaker's ad spend will go toward online in 2007, eMarketer predicts. "Allocation to online spending absolutely is increasing in auto as well as everywhere," says Barbara Goose, SVP for the GM account at Digitas. "We definitely recommend clients go where their customers are."

The agency handles the back-end web work for all GM brands and is Saturn's interactive agency of record.

Moreover, U.S. auto dealerships expect to spend 23 percent of their ad budgets online in 2007 in an effort to figure out what works in the medium, according to research from Classified Intelligence.