They also found that 68% of online marketers worldwide didn’t know if they could trust the visitor/traffic profile online media owners and publishers claimed. Other concerns: click fraud and uncertainty about where ads actually landed.

The report finds that “despite today’s buzz on all things digital, despite global interactive advertising being forecast to reach $147 billion by 2012 from the current $45 billion, and despite three online media platforms making it to the Fournaise 2007 top 10 marketing Effectiveness Ranking in the day-to-day reality of generating incremental customer demand for their products or services, marketers seem to have a major trust issue when it comes to the overall reliability and credibility of online advertising.”

“Across the thousands of online campaigns we audit track for our clients worldwide through our independent WebAnalyser and its 5-t Audit Tracking methodology, we have been observing consistently poor results: Click Through Rates have fallen as low as 0.15% (sometimes even lower), Conversion Rates are barely reaching the 3% average, and as far as Returns on Marketing Investment are concerned, our clients are most of the time flirting with the sub-30% numbers,” Jerome Fontaine, CEO and chief tracker of The Fournaise Marketing Group, said in a release.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel though: marketers want independent auditing of what media owners and publishers claim and independent auditing of the results of individual campaigns. With these changes in place – they are the norm for print and broadcast ads after all – Fournaise predicts that online media platforms will surpass their already impressive rates of growth.

The president and CEO of internet marketing agency WebMetro, Carlos Ugalde, says he’s discovered the key: concentrating on search marketing, in particular pay per click and search engine optimization.  

But wait, there’s more.

“It’s not just about Internet marketing, it’s about taking control and knowing how to diversify efforts heading into a recession and have you well-positioned to emerge stronger,” Ugalde said in a release.

Focusing marketing efforts intelligently is more important than ever in a sagging economy. A whopping 65% of marketing efforts had no discernible effect on consumers in 2007, according to a survey conducted by The Fournaise Marketing Group in January; spitting in the ocean isn’t an option in ’08.

Since search marketing is the most trackable and accountable medium, Ugalde suggests coupling an aggressive PPC and SEO effort this year with the following key initiatives:

1. Realigning online advertising tactics
2. Reducing fixed expenses
3. Leveraging social networks
4. Improving on-page conversions
5. Beefing up competitive intelligence gathering efforts
6. Capitalizing on market position

The recession will inevitably have an impact on all sectors of the economy – but it can be minimized.