I think just about everyone has heard about the big tumble in marketing online: profits in free-fall, companies aren’t placing ads, people are waking up to the difficulties when they want to advertise online. Hold on: that’s 2001.
Looking back at 2001
You probably recall that time as the dot-com bust. It was difficult for everybody, everyone who bet too much on specific things, but from one point of view it was necessary. There were too many gigantic promises being promised on a whole ton of shifty technology that couldn’t deliver, so a bubble-burst was unavoidable.
But then, after the whole mess, people made up their minds that online advertising was buried, which meant the foundation collapsed under the small market that was still kicking around. This (un)fortunately allowed Google to slide in and pick up gigantic chunks of the marketplace, becoming the main player in advertising.
Why AdWords and AdSense Suddenly Took Over
Slowly, the market returned, grew at a reasonable pace, SEO was born again, and a new romance began again with ads online. There was a little more caution in the air.
Wander your eyes over to 2008/2009 and the world finance crisis. Ad buys dropped heavily. Marketing budgets were in tatters. And when a company, trying to keep its head above water, cuts its marketing budget, what’s up first on the chopping block? Newspaper buys? Television spots? Not really. Try SEO and ‘new media’ ads in general.
Another Crash?
To the amateur (or the journalist who doesn’t do her research), this looks like a precipitous fall in advertising online. But where tons of people heralded, all over again, the repeated crash of an industry, anyone who peered past the surface could see that the facts didn’t really bear this out.
The truth is that the online marketplace for ads experienced a drop like every other sector, but the place people are going to stay informed remains the internet. Just because advertising sank doesn’t mean users stopped using the internet in droves. The opposite took place.
Everyone is Moving Online
In fact, as we finish our first decade of the 2000s, we’re finding even heavier downfalls in newspaper readership and TV viewers. And now books are under threat from new products like Amazon’s kindle. Apple might release a brand new product made only for searching around and getting and online content. People are without a doubt going online for their, well, everything.
This signifies online advertising is simply going to get bigger as more opportunities for monetization increase. So while there has been a drop in ads online, and at times it has appeared difficult, there are specific reasons for it that have nothing to do with whether or not the market for online advertising is feasible or not.
Now is the Most Opportune Time Imaginable
Times are tough. Big companies have cut down their online ad purchases, costs to advertise are lower than they’ve been in a while, and still each day the analytics, the quantity of SEO companies, giving top SEO—all these things are still on the rise.
Are you going to be someone that stays hidden during a recession, waiting for great market security 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 fooled by the sudden emergence of a ‘catastrophic fall’ in ads online. Look at the long-term, comprehend where it’s going, and move forward with success.