Advertising on the internet – the way forward
The latest internet advertising results are out, which provide really clear evidence of the direction of online marketing.
(They are particularly relevant given they are UK based stats rather than a lot of US information which is circulated, and secondly, they are the results for 2009 so are bang up to date)
The stats are from the Internet Advertising Bureau, in partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers, and shows a growth in online spend despite the difficult economic conditions.
Key figures are:
- Spending on internet advertising grew by 4.2% year-on-year on a like-for-like basis.
- Paid-for search listings (the adverts that appear next to search engine results) were up 9.5%, display adverts down 4.4% and classified adverts down 5.3%
- The number of people online grew to 39.7 in Feb 2010, representing an increase of over four million active internet users in just 12 months
So what does all this mean?
In a nutshell, more and more people are spending time online and businesses are gearing their advertising towards appearing next to search engine results.
Ah, but aren’t paid-for search listings expensive I hear you cry?
It’s one of the biggest myths in online marketing. Tailored, relevant paid-for search adverts can in fact be a very cost effective way of securing more business. You can find out exactly what gives you the best ROI and you can analyse which keywords are attracting the most number of click throughs to your website. Win win.
Don’t forget though, there are many other cost effective strategies for appearing on the top pages of search engine results, such as search engine optimisation (SEO) to help improve your website’s natural rankings, or getting a listing on a business directory that features on the first page. You can find out more on all these approaches here
Tags: business directories, internet advertising, Internet Advertising Bureau, Online advertising, paid-for search, search engine optimisation, SEO