Check out this May, 2, 2011 update from Kate Maddox. Her report offers additional evidence that the industry is climbing out of the hole. See that light up there? Yes, you do:

As the economy picks up steam, b2b advertisers are increasing ad budgets and rolling out new campaigns, with activity expected to pick up even more in the second half of the year. Overall ad spending is projected to rise in the low single digits this year, while online ad spending is expected to increase in double digits, according to recent forecasts.

Sage North America, which makes business software, increased its advertising budget by about 25% this year over last year, said Dennis Frahmann, exec VP-marketing.

“Our budget largely expanded because of the addition of radio,” he said, pointing to the rollout of a national radio effort this year that is part of the “Sage Experience” campaign, created by Doremus San Francisco. That campaign also includes print and online ads.

“In 2010, we did a number of regional tests to determine the impact we expected to see from increased advertising on our demand-gen activities,” Frahmann said. Sage buys about 2,000 different search terms, so we tracked these terms in test cities where we had a heavy brand presence [with radio and print ads] versus cities where we didn't, and we saw [search results] increase.”

Sage will continue the “Sage Experience” campaign in the second half and likely increase its marketing spending compared with the first half, Frahmann said. “We intend to continue the same general use of media, including a national radio buy, and we will use a variety of online resources, as well as print,” he said.

Sage has increased its use of online video this year, running ads on sites aimed at small businesses, such as SBTV.com.

“That has worked very effectively for us, and we will expand the use of video to other sites as well,” Frahmann said.