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Sarah Novotny is the Sr. Editor in Charge of Adotas. Sarah grew up in San Jose, California. Her educational and professional career have taken her to both Los Angeles and New York City where she received a B.F.A. from NYU. As a writer, Sarah has free-lanced for various publications focusing primarily on traditional advertising and media reviews. When not writing and editing for Adotas, Sarah is continuing her acting career in various theatrical and film/television productions.

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No Recession For Online Advertising, Promise

Written on
June 24th 2008
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ADOTAS EXCLUSIVE – There are a lot of numbers to follow, so resist the urge to let your eyes glaze over — these are important figures to note when taking stock of your future in Internet marketing.

I continually hear and read in the news that the U.S. economy is tumbling rapidly towards a recession or even more depressing is that we may already in a recession. What is a recession and why should we fear it? To quote the all-knowing Wikipedia:

“In macroeconomics, a recession is generally associated with a decline in a country’s real gross domestic product (GDP), or negative real economic growth. According to one widespread definition, a recession occurs when real growth is negative for two or more successive quarters of a year.”

Well, it would seem that based on that definition the U.S. economy is in fact in a recession; how deep it will go and how long it will last is anyone’s guess. Although there are certainly industries dramatically affected by this recession (airlines, real estate, etc.) those of us involved in the online marketing industry should consider ourselves fortunate.

To those of you who are/were part of the unfortunate few affected by downsizing spawned by recent mergers/acquisitions (Google/DoubleClick), I am sorry that your careers have been interrupted, but please continue reading as I think you will see that there is significant cause for hope and optimism if not immediately, then certainly in the not-too distant future.

Why are we fortunate?

According to eMarketer, as a percentage of overall advertising budgets, the percentage allocated to online advertising continues to grow, in fact that percentage is expected to double from 6% in 2006 to more than 12% in 2011 where of the projected $316 billion 2011 total media spend, $41 billion will be spent online. Furthermore, while growing at a rate of approximately 14% from 2007, according to TNS Media Intelligence, 2008 looks to be the year that Internet advertising spending outpaces radio in regards to advertising spending.

As a segment of online marketing in which to focus, paid search and display ads will garner the largest budgets accounting for approximately 60% of all online advertising while from 2007 to 2011, the following two marketing formats are projected to realize the greatest percentage increases: Rich Media/Video (approximately 38%) and Mobile (approximately 400%).

hat do these statistics mean and who is driving them? One example is portrayed in a recent eMarketer study, the U.S. automotive looks to increase their online spending in 2008 by 21% or $3 billion and is projected to grow to $5.6 billion in 2012. Furthermore, in a survey report from Eloqua, “55% of marketers anticipate a decrease in print ad spend three years from now” and that “more than 40% of marketers have radically increased their budgets for online advertising” since 2005.

Why is the online space continually winning more advertising budget? Simply speaking, the two most critical components driving this growth are accountability and effectiveness.

Accountability: the refrain is repeated continually, to continue to justify their budgets, marketing managers must prove the ROI of their campaigns and due to the innate ability provided by the online space, virtually every touch point is tracked—beginning with campaign development cost, CPM, CTRs and conversions which ultimately yield that coveted ROI. In fact, according to the same Eloqua study mentioned above, budget accountability has increased to such an extent that 86% of marketers feel increased pressure while “68% of organizations are measuring the quantifiable contribution of marketing to the bottom line.”

Effectiveness: via search consumers actually request the products that they seek and with a well planned SEM campaign, your highly relevant products can be displayed. According to Eloqua, 64% of marketers attest greater campaign effectiveness than three years ago.
So how do these facts and figures translate themselves into a fresh(er) career in online advertising? Anecdotally speaking, In Pittsburgh where I am based, we are continually seeking qualified sales, marketing and development talent—of course it is a true plus if the candidate is able to spell “affiliate marketing” From a more professional standpoint, based on a quick survey of HR professionals, there are jobs a plenty. In fact, according to Bobby Campbell of Synergy Staffing, Inc. it takes a candidate with online experience no more than 2-3 weeks to find a new position with a 20-25% wage increase.

What to do: educate, network, work hard, stay focused, be creative and don’t be afraid to speak up to the powers that be that your ideas rock. Get the industry newsletters – and continue to attend the industry tradeshows, but this time, walk the floor with your resume in hand.



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