Online Marketing Predictions for 2007

By Aisling M. Brennan

Account Director

As As 2006 draws to a close--yikes, wasn't that a fast year--it's time again for reflection and predictions. 2006 was the year of online video, think Youtube and user generated content, think MySpace, Facebook and Bebo. 

So if I look into my magic 8-ball what can I see for 2007?

1. Online will continue to capture a larger percentage of overall marketing budgets as global offline retailers and brand advertisers shift their budgets online.

Currently capturing less than 8% market share of total budgets in the U.S. and 10.5% in the U.K. there remains a huge divergence between online media consumption patterns (aprox 25%) and online marketing spend. This divergence will greatly lessen as brand marketers follow their target audience online.
 
2. Search will continue to be driving force behind increased online ad spend. Currently responsible for 40% of US online adspend and 60% share of UK online adspend Search will continue to grow in importance for marketers due to high ROI achieved.

However in the face of increased competition and the inevitable escalating bid prices within the PPC market, I predict that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will also return in popularity as marketers strive to improve organic (or natural) ranking results as well as PPC rankings.

3. User generated content sites (Bebo, Youtube, MySpace) will continue to dominate headlines as the copyright issues are resolved and compensation business models identified. In addition the PPC networks will integrate their technology and serve related ads alongside poplular video content - (why else did Google spend $3.65bn on YouTube?)

As a result user generated media will become increasingly attractive to advertisers as the proliferation of blogs, podcasts, in-game advertising etc. continues.

4. Mobile marketing will take off. Best practices in local mobile advertising will be perfected as mobile carriers  experiment with a variety of ad models and delivery platforms. The ability to pinpoint local audiences and serve geo-targeted local advertising using enhanced, searchable functionality will instantly appeal to advertisers.

5. Offline channels (tv, outdoor, cinema) will continue to experience declining audience figures and ad spend. As a result they will have to adapt quickly in order to appeal to increasingly fragmented market.

We will see an increase in the number of tv channels placing their back-catalog of programmes online. Perhaps even the emergence of the oft-talked of "burn-to-order" business model will be realised. 

All-in-all lots going on for 2007.