Open Eye on digital marketing

Andy Maclean, managing director of Open Eye Marketing, has revealed how Google and digital marketing are weathering the credit crunch.

Despite Google recently posting its first ever quarterly decline in ad revenue there is plenty of evidence that Google advertising spend and wider digital marketing mediums - most especially Google Adwords pay per click - are well placed to prosper where more traditional advertising mediums are in trouble.

In a year when digital advertising spend is expected to exceed television for the first time there are considerable pointers highlighting how digital marketing - with Google advertising as the flagship example - will become increasingly important to advertisers from small business marketing managers to large corporate brands.

Recent surveys indicate a significant percentage of the general public still say their retail spending is unaffected by current conditions.

What's more, we know that many leading retail sites such as Pricerunner and Kelkoo have seen significant traffic volume increase recently, which indicates that not only is the public more likely to buy online than ever before but also that they are being much more savvy by using such price comparison websites.

Furthermore I fully expect this Christmas to see another record-breaking year for online sales as it continues to steal volumes away from the high street.

It's a common conception that when times are tough spending on advertising is one of the first things to be cut and to a degree this is the case.

However, as the digital marketing industry becomes ever more sophisticated, more businesses are finding the value of Google Adwords and organic search engine placement through search engine optimisation an increasingly important business objective.

Certain observations are increasingly common.

Many digital marketing agencies are reporting that clients' online ad spend and number of new clients have increased since the recent troubles.

It is our experience that Google advertising is becoming a greater priority recently, both paid search through Adwords and search engine optimisation.

Clients tell us that they cannot afford to spend money on print or other media advertising so are focusing at least some of those budgets to get better results through the search engines.

They also tell us the measurable nature and tangibility of their Google advertising is important to them as they seek to justify and quantify advertising spend and the corresponding sales results.

The trend since Google and the other search engines came into existence is that of a permanent increase in both number of people using them and propensity to buy from the websites in their search results.

This ultimately means that digital marketing agencies and the advertisers they work for can continue to benefit and ride out this and other economic downturns.

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