What's Working: Online Advertising
We have seen over and over again that online advertising is the most effective option.
But now that the economy is tanking, our ability to measure exactly what is working and what isn’t (through our G5 Media Dashboard) is proving more and more important. Many of our clients are tightening their marketing budget belts in response. Our tool illustrates for them what is working. More often than not, what has been working is their web advertising efforts (including PPC, SEO and Maps Optimization).
And this is being echoed across various industries and on the web. For example, over at The Marketing Pilgrim today, a recent MarketingProfs survey was referenced wherein 600 marketing professionals were asked their future plans in light of the current economic downturn.
The response is surprising, even for us. Things are progressing rapidly:
“When times are lean, businesses often cut their marketing budgets. The grim news is 65% of marketers expect negative effects on marketing overall. And they expect the affects will be long term – with 75% expecting it to last into 2010. Some predict layoffs (25%) and falling salaries (43%). 17% believe they will face both layoffs and a pay cut.
So what are marketers doing? They are moving from traditional advertising to online marketing. That’s what we’ve heard for a while, but now marketers are moving budgets to online even faster than before. According to MarketingProfs the majority are spending more online.”
In essence, it seems that while we are seeing cutbacks in marketing (and, well, everywhere else for that matter) that cutback is much more present in print, television, etc.
But it’s important, even (and maybe even moreso) online, to use the right type of advertising. A recent Nielsen/Norman Group study has shown that display advertising online is almost completely useless.
No, really. Check this bit about it from GigaOm:
“(Jakob) Nielsen, in a keynote address at the inaugural Web Experience Forum in Boston, Mass., said web design is doomed to failure unless we learn from end users. And one major lesson is that other than paid search, ads don’t work.
‘We call this banner blindness — people won’t see ads at all,’ said Nielsen. ‘Ads might as well not exist as far as users are concerned, except for search ads.’ The number of web users that so much as glance at banner ads, he added, is too small to even quantify.”
That’s right. While companies are moving their marketing online with more and more frequency (and with good reason) they still need to make good marketing decision once they make that shift.
Luckily, we can help.
Tags: G5 Search Marketing, GigaOm, Marketing Pilgrim, Online Marketing