Online advertising: Yes, even in a recession

A report by PricewaterhouseCoopers has revealed the impact on advertising caused by the current economic gloom/recession/credit crunch (delete as appropriate). Casualties of this marketing massacre are near-universal, though online advertising is - to some extent - holding out the daunting onslaught like the desperate soldiers at Rourke’s Drift. In such a dire landscape, the possibilities for SMEs to launch any sort of advertising campaign, when even the large multi-nationals are decimating their marketing budgets, seem ludicrous. And yet, there are options. It may be injured, but online advertising has more of a flesh wound compared to its compatriots in other media sectors. For business, including SMEs, online advertising shouldn’t be ruled out... First things first; we’re not talking about mammoth campaigns featuring the latest in multimedia technologies taking over websites up and down the web. We’re not talking skyscrapers, leaderboards, or even MPUs. For the SME market, online advertising is all about using text advertising in search engines – those sponsored ads that appear after a web search. Now, it’s fair to say the perception of online advertising, even as text ads in results pages on Google, Yahoo or Bing (Microsoft’s new search engine), is of complicated processes, and more than a little computer wizardry. But that’s not necessarily the case.