LOHAD’s Sorta-Semi-Annual Online Marketing Survey, Part 1
March 25th, 2006Back in July, I conducted an online marketing survey among the advertising and marketing professionals over on the AdRants forum at Soflow. I was interested to see whether ideas about online marketing had changed in the eight months since then, so I presented the same survey to the same audience. Sixty professionals responded back then, 55 responded this time. The results, as before, incorporate a margin of error of plus or minus 100% and are as follows:
You’ve been professionally involved in marketing / advertising for how many years?
Mean: 12.6 / Median: 12 / Mode: 12
(Six respondents have experience of 25 years or more.)
You’ve been professionally involved in online marketing for how many years?
Mean: 4.4 / Median: 5 / Mode: 2 and “more than 10” (tie)
(Eight respondents claimed more than 10 years each, up from two last time. Resume padding? Or maybe it just feels like more than 10 years!)
What online marketing tactics have you personally set up and implemented? (Do not choose tactics that you’ve had others implement for you.)
73.3% Email Marketing (html)
66.7% Email Marketing (text)
62.2% Banner Ads
62.2% Search Engine Keyword Ads
51.1% Email Newsletter Ads
44.4% SEO Techniques
42.2% Blog Writing
37.8% Affiliate Marketing
35.6% Ad Network Campaigns
31.1% Viral Campaigns
31.1% Rich Media Ads
31.1% Search Engine Banner Ads
28.9% Third-Party Email Lists
28.9% Optimized Press Releases
22.2% Blog Ads
15.6% Online Sweepstakes
15.6% Online Coupons
(HTML email marketing overtook text email in the number-one spot. The number of people using blog ads, previously the lowest percentage on the list, has nearly doubled over eight months ago, while the use of online sweepstakes has dropped to less than half of what it was.)
If you had limited resources for online marketing, where would you focus those resources? (Respondents were asked to choose only three.)
50.0% SEO Techniques
47.6% Email Marketing (html)
47.6% Search Engine Keyword Ads
28.6% Viral Campaigns
28.6% Blog Writing
19.0% Affiliate Marketing
16.7% Optimized Press Releases
14.3% Blog Ads
14.3% Email Marketing (text)
9.5% Email Newsletter Ads
9.5% Online Coupons
7.1% Rich Media Ads
4.8% Online Sweepstakes
2.4% Banner Ads
2.4% Search Engine Banner Ads
2.4% Third-Party Email Lists
0.0% Ad Network Campaigns
(SEO techniques, which was 34% in this category last time, overtook search engine keyword advertising in the top spot. A reflection of click fraud worries, perhaps? The desire to use html email marketing rose signifcantly, from 29.8% last time. Percentages aside, the top-three mix of techniques for limited budgets remains the same: SEO, html email, and keywords.)
If you had unlimited resources for online marketing, which tactics would you still avoid? (Respondents were asked to choose only three.)
60.0% Third Party Email Lists
32.5% Online Sweepstakes
22.5% Blog Ads
20.0% Banner Ads
20.0% Online Coupons
17.5% Search Engine Banner Ads
17.5% Search Engine Keyword Ads
15.0% Email Marketing (text)
15.0% Rich Media Ads
12.5% Ad Network Campaigns
10.0% Email Newsletter Ads
10.0% Affiliate Marketing
10.0% Optimized Press Releases
7.5% Blog Writing
7.5% SEO Techniques
7.5% Email Marketing (html)
5.0% Viral Campaigns
(Takeaway for marketers: Are you thinking about using third-party email lists? It may be worth a test, but don’t be too aggressive in this segment of your online marketing portfolio.)
Tune in tomorrow for the qualitative wisdom portion of our program: 12 professionals adding their open-ended $.02 worth about the topic of online marketing.