Almost everyone on earth has heard about the massive decline in online advertising: profits in free-fall, companies aren’t placing ads, people are understanding how hard it is to advertise online. Hold on: that’s 2001.

Heady Days for Everyone

You probably look back on that famous period as the dot-com bust. It was difficult for everybody, everyone who bet too much on specific things, but from one vantage point it was necessary. There were too many mystery profits being promised on a whole ton of shifty technology that wasn’t so stable, so a bubble-burst was unavoidable.

But then, once that was finished, people decided far too hastily that online marketing in general was over, which meant the bottom fell out of the developing marketplace that was there. This essentially allowed Google to come in and take over most of the online ad market, which meant Google was suddenly ad placer #1.

Why AdWords and AdSense Suddenly Took Over

Finally, the market crawled back, kept growing, new companies came into being, and a new romance began again with ads online. There was a little more caution in the air.

Jump forward to 2008/2009 and the crisis. Ad purchases dropped dangerously. Ad budgets were slashed. And when a company, trying to keep its head above water, slashes its marketing budget, what’s up first on the chopping block? Print ads? Video? Not really. Try SEO and ‘new media’ ads in general.

Are We Screwed Anew?

To the lazy eye (or the lazy journalist), this looks like a heavy drop in advertising online. But where many people saw, all over again, the repeated crash of an industry, anyone who looked harder could see that the facts didn’t really bear this out.

The facts are that advertising online experienced a mini-crash like every other sector, but the final arrival point to stay informed remains the internet. Just because ads dropped doesn’t mean users stopped using the internet in huge amounts. Exactly the contrary.

Everyone is Moving Online

Really, with each passing month, we’re seeing even bigger falls in print circulation and TV viewership. And now books are finally under fire from devices like Amazon’s kindle. Apple will probably release a 10-inch touchscreen device specifically for browsing and online content. People are without a doubt going online for their, well, everything.

This means online advertising is only going to increase as more chances to make money emerge. So while there has been a decline in online advertising, and sometimes it’s seemed quite difficult, there are detailed reasons for it that don’t touch on whether the market for online ads is viable (it is).

You Can’t Find a Better Period Than Right Now

Times are tough. Traditionally solid ad buyers have pulled back their online ad purchases, rates are lower than ever, and yet every day the amount of information about an ad campaign available to us, the number of white-hat SEO companies, providing top PPC—all these things are still on the rise.

Are you going to be a business that lies low during a recession, waiting for proper conditions before making a move? Or are you constantly looking for advantages, searching as to where the market is going and re-energizing at the most opportune moment, when ad rates and the market are perfect for it?

Don’t be gamed by the illusion of a ‘catastrophic fall’ in ads online. Look at the long game, know where it’s going, and get in on the ground floor.


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Filed under: Internet Marketing

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