The Pontiflex Blog

New economy calls for new tactics

July 9, 2008 at 3:00 pm Arun Krishnan 1 comment

A new report from William Blair & Co. surveyed 150 Chicago-area interactive marketing companies and found that two thirds of respondents said economic turbulence is affecting spending.  Growth expectations for internet advertising have fallen to 16% — previous surveys pegged it at 19%.  A number of forecasting companies have revised their estimates for the year:  Magna Global for example, now expects 12% growth, a significant reduction from the estimate of 16%.

As has been predicted in this blog before,  the areas forecast to thrive most during the slowdown include “paid search and direct response ads that can be tied directly to ROI.”

The tough economy represents a window of opportunity for the entire industry. We can make a clean break from the old ways of measuring ROI and turn to newer, more relevant ones.

To be honest, even during better economic times, metrics like click-throughs were at best a poor way of measuring the effectiveness of a campaign.

The Internet gives marketers a unique opportunity to interact with consumers in more meaningful ways through venues such as newsletters, community sites (such as the Starbucks Ideas site) and reward programs. Now, branding is more than establishing a couple of one-way touchpoints – it is a continuous dialog.

Today’s report speaks of an urgent need to measure these interactions with consumers, and genuinely measure how effective we are at moving consumers along the sales cycle.

It’s time to ring in the new.

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