An eMarketer survey today shows that online advertising is still growing steadily to spite the recession and the downturn in spending for traditional offline advertising. Actually the recession is probably the very reason that advertisers are spending more on digital advertising and less on offline advertising media.

We experienced phenomenal growth as a company right after 911.  Our clients had placed millions of dollars in traditional offline media that they tried to stop running because of messaging and timing. We put plans for online media together in a matter of three weeks and started running messages that we could test on the fly and modify as needed. True optimization was used to fine tune messaging appropriate to consumer response in a time of crisis management. We believe the same thing is occurring today… companies realizing how spot on the online advertising is with reaching customers by finely optimizing messages to gain better and better response. Online is being referred to as the “measurable media”.

eMarketer states: “The Internet’s share of total media ad spending is rising by at least 1 percentage point every year. Simply put: Marketers are spending more on Internet ads, while spending less on advertising in other media, such as newspapers, radio and magazines.”

 “The spending shifts predate the recession,” says David Hallerman, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, US Advertising Spending: The New Reality. “But the current economy is reinforcing the new advertising models—and making them more permanent.”

“Digital marketing offers compelling benefits, especially for cash-conscious companies,” he says. “Marketers can more readily measure the results of Internet advertising than with most traditional media. This produces more-efficient advertising and higher ROI, which in turn pushes traditional media to compete with lower pricing.”

I also believe that this puts additional pressure on the offline media world to measure differently and to better measure true ROI. For example, how do you measure true response to a magazine ad versus a Google Keyword Ad? You can very specifically measure the Google Keyword Ad for impressions, click thru (response) and even conversion (eCommerce booking). And we all know that online is held to a much higher scrutiny for measurement simply because you CAN measure it.

The way that companies spend ad dollars is changing as consumers change their planning and buying habits. It’s all about getting in front of the consumers in the midst of their buying process. As we have proven during this economic climate, our clients are doing well because we target specific audiences and we deploy online advertising that grabs their attention.

Online is growing and forcing offline to become more accountable for results. We will never go backward toward more offline media because the consumer has led us in this direction. Marketers will follow the consumer.

Till Next Time….

Leah