Electronics Marketing News

What's The Impact of A Slowing Economy on Online Advertising?

With the US economy in a weakened state, companies are expected to look hard at their costs.

The good news here is for online marketing.   As savvy marketer know, online advertising is both controllable and measurable.    When it comes time to plan which channels marketers will use this year, the favorite is online.   Print media and other difficult to measure options slip down the priority list.

BtoB recent survey confirms this acceleration towards online marketing.   Of 29.4% of respondents who said htey have revised original 2008 marketing budgets, 45.3% said print will see the greatest decline.  According to eMarketer, online ad spending is expected to reach $25.8B, up 23% over last year.   Paid search will be the lion share of this with $15.5B in 2008 - up 31.9%.

Increasing Trouble at Traditional Ad-driven Media Firms

B-to-B publishers in the electronic space continue to face mounting pressure on their traditional ad models and struggle to find the path forward.  So far this year:

• Reed Elsevier put Reed Business Information up for sale to reduce exposure to cyclical advertising markets. 
• United Business Media restructured CMP into 4 businesses each with it's own CEO.   The CMP name is eliminated.
• Ziff Davis filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
• Penton Media did a major restructure to sharpen it's sales focus.