Email service provider ExactTarget released a study this week showing marketers plan to boost spending in email, social media and other non-traditional outreach channels this year. Advisory firm Econsultancy conducted the research along with the Indianapolis-based ESP.

The study of 1,000-plus marketers shows 54% of marketers said they will boost budgets for email marketing, and about 66% in social media (even though about 80% of those acknowledged the difficulty in tracking ROI in the medium).

Delving deeper in social media, the research showed the medium is the "fastest growing digital marketing channel." That includes venues from Facebook pages to blogs.

More than 70% are boosting spending on so-called "off-site" social media offerings such as Facebook and Twitter, and about 65% in "on-site" areas such as "blogs or ratings and reviews."

Linus Gregoriadis, research director at Econsultancy, stated: "Social media marketing is the area where companies are most likely to be spending more money during 2010, but areas such as search engine marketing and email marketing will remain buoyant."

Fifty-one percent said they plan to increase paid-search budgets, and 56% in mobile marketing.

Also, 13% plan to decrease their overall marketing budget, and 42% to keep it flat.