The findings pointed to a rise in the use of various online media including rich, social and search engine optimization.

In particular, more video content will feature on auto dealerships’ websites. Currently, just 33% of auto dealerships include video content and this, according to The Kelsey Group’s research, will rise to 59% during the next 12 months.

Similarly, auto dealerships’ use of consumer reviews and ratings will rise from 29% to 43% and social networking from 15% to 33%.

“These findings point to a significant disruption in the auto dealer advertising space,” said Neal Polachek, CEO of The Kelsey Group. “There are valuable opportunities for traditional and new media companies that tune into dealers’ adoption of Web 2.0 technologies and align with dealers’ online media-buying intentions.”

Also evident from the research was that the number of dealerships employing staff specifically to run online activity is on the rise, with 9% of the dealerships surveyed having an Internet manager or similar.