The State Of Internet Marketing Research (2005-2012): A Systematic Review Using Classification and Relationship Analysis

The purpose of this study is to quantitatively review pertinent research activities that have been performed between 2005 and 2012 (July) in the area of internet marketing. In addition the paper identifies the central topic in the internet marketing literature and provides expected topical areas of interest. 2158 research article abstract citations were analysed from 460 refereed academic journals collected from six databases. The articles were further categorised under specific topics and network analysis was performed using GEPHI 0.8.1 to know the central topic in the last seven years. Consumer behaviour was found to be the most frequently studied topic in the area of internet marketing research with 472 articles (21.87% of total) followed by ‘services' with 280 articles (12.97% of total) and ‘business strategy' with 267 articles (12.37% of total). It was also found that topics; purchase intention and social media hold high centrality degree among the examined topics that evolved in the last seven years. This study provides both academics and practitioners with an extensive quantitative review of the internet marketing literature along with an insight of how internet marketing research is emerging.