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Marketing Executives Are Continuing to Shift into Digital Marketing

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Andrew

In new research from eMarketer, CMOs predicted that their ad budgets would rise 8.1%. This shows renewed confidence in the economy, and shows a general upward trend since the end of the recession in 2009.

Out of that extra 8.1% of marketing budget, most of it will be spent on digital marketing. In fact, digital marketing spend is expected to increase by 12.8% over the next year. This is the highest change out of all marketing channels, beating traditional ad spending, brand-building, and customer relationship management.

Traditional media spending is expected to drop 0.8% over the same period. This reflects the larger trend of traditional ad spend decreasing, while digital ad spend is increasing.

eMarketer also estimates that digital advertising spending will rise 23.3% this year, while traditional budgets other than TV are going to remain steady.

Now is a great time for small businesses to market themselves online. Digital marketing and advertising channels offer access to a large audience, but offer things traditional marketing channels can’t offer such as targeting and better analytics data.

If you have any questions about digital adverting or marketing, contact us today for a free consultation.

Multitasking Consumers Bring New Challenges

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Andrew

Consumers are using more media than ever before, but their attention is more divided than ever before as well. In a new report from eMarketer, consumers are spending more than 11 hours with media on a daily basis.

Coming in first is TV and video, with 4:34 spent watching at least some kind of video. That’s a huge number, and shows that even in today’s world, traditional TV spend shouldn’t be counted out.

Even more telling than TV is that Internet came in at 2:47 per day. That’s an amazing statistic for a technology that has only been around for a few years. That’s also good news for digital marketing, because Internet usage has been increasing and shows no sign of slowing down.

The flipside to this increased time spent consuming content means that more of that time is spent multitasking through different forms of media, so there’s less dedicated time spent interacting with one form of media.

This is especially apparent with people watching TV. More than 16% of respondents said they visit the websites of companies’ ads they see, and 19% of tablet and smartphone users said they searched for information on commercials they see as well. This shows the importance of having an integrated marketing campaign, because people don’t just watch TV or go online anymore, they do them all at once.

An easy way to integrate your campaigns is Retargeting. By referencing a special or discount in your radio and TV ads for online shoppers, you can drive more traffic to your website. Then, after people visit your website, you can target them with display advertising, increasing the chance of them returning and converting.

Social Display Spending To Increase in 2012

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Andrew

More and more people are going on social networks. In fact, Facebook wins one in every five page views, and accounts for nine percent of all visits online.

Those are huge numbers, and the steadily increasing amount of people on Facebook, means more advertising dollars will be spent on the social-networking site in 2012.

According to eMarketer, 59% of marketers are planning on increasing social media advertising in 2012, compared to 31% planning on increasing on ad networks and exchanges.

eMarketer also estimates that US online display advertising will grow an astonishing 24.1% this year to $15.4 billion.

This is good news for small businesses everywhere. Social network advertising and display targeting can be narrowed down to pinpoint only those people who might be interested in your product or service.

The Internet gives you the ability to appear larger than you are, and give you advertising scale you might otherwise not be able to afford.

Digital and Mobile Ad Budgets Rising

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Andrew

In a recent survey from research company Warc, digital and mobile ad budgets are growing, while TV, radio and press budgets are shrinking.

The budget sentiments are based on a system of 0-100, where anything over 50 is generally improving, and below 50 is generally declining.

Digital and mobile received scores of 78.9 and 71.2, respectively. TV received a score of 48.8, Radio a score of 42.1 and Press a score of 36.1.

Now is a great time to be spending more on digital and mobile. More and more people are accessing the Internet from desktops and mobile devices, and those numbers are only going to grow.

Local Digital Ad Spend to Reach $38.5B by 2016

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Andrew

In a new report from research firm BIA/Kelsey, it projected that local online and mobile advertising will grow at an annual rate of 12.7%.

These numbers show substantial lift compared with the $21.2B spent in 2011, but still pale in comparison to traditional advertising spend.

Traditional Spend was $111.5B in 2011, but is only projected to grow to $112.7B. Those are essentially flat numbers, meaning not much will change from no until 2016. In fact, traditional ad spend will decrease to account for about 75% of overall ad budgets, dropping almost 10% from the 84% it’s at now.

This research shows that more and more small businesses are investing into digital advertising, but the real question is: are you?

If you haven’t evaluated your online strategy recently, you need to. Digital advertising is not going away, in fact, it’s only getting bigger.

Check out some of our offerings for digital marketing. We do all sorts of search and display advertising. We also do email marketing, mobile websites and more.

Mobile, Mobile and More Mobile

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Andrew

We’ve preached over and over how mobile is changing the digital marketing and advertising business. We’ve seen it with our own clients, and marketers across the U.S. are increasing their mobile budgets as well.

The latest report comes from Marin, a search-management software company. They predict that mobile will be bigger than desktop soon, and that marketers need to raise budgets accordingly.

One prediction is that at the current run-rates, mobile devices will account for 25% of all paid search clicks on Google by December 2012. Additionally, the share of ad spend will be 23%. Those are additions of 103% and 164%, respectively.

One of the driving factors behind all of this growth in mobile is the insanely fast consumer adoption of smartphones and tablets. In 2011 alone, Apple sold more iOS devices than the total number of Macs ever sold in the last 28 years.

Another reason for adding mobile into your business’ marketing strategy is that smartphones have higher click-through rate, and a lower cost-per-click than both desktop and tablets. Smartphone users click on ads 4.12% of the time compared with 2.39% for desktops and 3.12% for tablets. Additionally, the cost per click is only $.53 for smartphones, compared with $.83 and $.63 for desktops and tablets, respectively.

So have you decided that you need mobile yet? Well if you haven’t yet, I’ll do my best to convince you with some more data about mobile over the next few days.

Search Engine Use Continues to Grow

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Andrew

More than half of adult search engine users make searches at least once a day. That represents a 54% increase from 35% in 2004. This represents a huge increase in the number of people that use search engines to find information.

These numbers come from a new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Search engine use has never been higher. Daily use is highest among 18-29 and 30-49 year-olds (60%), college graduates (70%), and people with household incomes of more than $75k (68%).

Search engines are also seen as reliable sources of information, while almost three-quarters of users say that most of the information they find is accurate and trustworthy.

So what does all this mean for small business marketing? Well, it means that if you aren’t in the search results, you need to be. Search engines are being used more frequently than ever to find information, and users see them as a reliable and trustworthy way to find what they’re looking for.

One way to get in the top of the search results is with search targeting. Also known as paid search, search targeting gets your ads into the top of the search results page, resulting in increased visibility and clicks.

Another way to show up in search results is to optimize your Google Places page. Create a unique Google Places page that provides information for people to find your business.

Another way to get better results in the local search rankings is to use a business directory service to get more citations of your business. A service such as Local AdsUpNow gets your business listed in almost 150 directories, giving your business increased presence and authority in Google’s eyes.

It’s not too late to get in the search results. Contact us today to get started with search targeting or Google Places Optimization.

More Marketers Flocking to Mobile

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Andrew

These days, information is passed through more channels than ever before. It used to be the big three: radio, TV, and print. Now, digital marketing has overtaken print to become the second-largest advertising medium based on spend.

2012 seems poised to continue the trend of proliferating digital marketing and advertising – especially in mobile. In a recent survey by ValueClick, 65% of US marketers’ planned on increasing their mobile ad spend for 2012.

The increase is notable, but what’s also significant is that only 3% said they were going to decrease their budget for mobile. I’m not sure who those 3% are, but they need to wake up and smell the mobile.

Another stat from the report is that the lion’s share of mobile ad budgets are going to search and banner ads, with 34% and 30.7% respectively. Also, 49% of marketers plan to use mobile video as part of their budget.

Mobile is emerging as the next large advertising medium, and with more dollars being spent online – both mobile and desktop – than ever before, marketers and business owners need to jump on board and get their feet wet in mobile.

Digital Politcal Ad Spend Increasing

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Andrew

It’s an election year, which means upcoming political candidates are spending a lot of advertising dollars are being spent to promote their campaigns.

According to new numbers from a report by Borrell Associates, online political ad spending is set to increase to $160 million this year – up from just $22 million in 2008. That marks a huge increase from how the digital advertising space was valued just four years ago.

Of that $160 million in online spending, 30% of it is expected to be targeted display advertising, such as retargeting and contextual targeting. Another 32.6% of the political budget will be spent on search targeting.

The only areas losing share for online spending are email, and streaming audio. Streaming video is expected to hold at 22%.

So the biggest names in politics are investing more and more into digital advertising, showing that online advertising is seen as more necessary than ever.

Are you stepping up your digital game for 2012? Digital advertising is growing across the board, and if you aren’t taking advantage of it, you need to.

What Apple’s New iPad Means For Digital Marketing

Posted on March 9, 2012 by Andrew

In case you were in Siberia, you probably heard about Apple’s new iPad. It has a better screen, faster processor and a better camera.

All that sounds great if you’re in the market for a new iPad, but those stats should also sound good if you are in digital marketing. The reason is more online traffic. Tablet traffic since December 2011 has increased 50%, and tablet sales are on pace to pass traditional PC sales by 2015.

That means you better be thinking about the tablet space when you plan your advertising. Tablets don’t trigger mobile websites, but tablet users search similarly to mobile users, meaning they take action faster and search more for local businesses.

Data from the same Localeze study I shared a few days ago shows this prominently. Roughly two-thirds of tablet owners use their device at least once a week to search for a local business, making tablet owners more active than in local searches than both mobile phone users and PC/laptop users.

Tablet searchers also purchase more frequently as well. In the study, 86% of respondents said they made a purchase as a result from their most recent tablet-based local search.

So, all in all, tablets are friends of local businesses and marketers. Tablet owners search more and purchase more than other searchers, so it pays to target tablets.