A review of internet marketing research over the past 20 years and future research direction

Purpose – The 20‐year review of marketing and selected business journals examines the internet marketing literature to determine how the literature has evolved in terms of quantity, content, and publication outlets. This article aims to provide a comprehensive review of the internet marketing literature. It offers a big picture view of the current state of the internet marketing literature and gives readers a sense of the quantity of internet marketing articles published, the scope of this research, and how this research has evolved in terms of content.Design/methodology/approach – Consistent with Schibrowsky et al., a content analysis was performed on 1,957 internet‐related marketing articles identified by searching the business source premier database. The paper reviews the internet marketing literature that has been published in the time period 2005‐2012 in marketing journals.Findings – The study revealed that 68.5 percent of the internet marketing research had been published in the last eight years. T...