A fresh report by the Internet Advertising Bureau and PriceWaterhouseCooper advise that in the first half of 2009, online promotion became the biggest advertising medium in the UK, overtaking TV promotion for the first time. In this time frame, Online Marketing grew by 4.6%. During the same period, the total amount of money spent on advertising overall was down 16.6%. Online promotion now has 23.5% of the market share whereas TV has 21.9%, down 17% from the same time last year.

The current credit crunch is seen as a major factor in speeding up a system which was in reality imagined by the end of 2009 in which online advertising made the number 1 spot in the UK. The UK is at the moment the world leader of online marketing. Users of the online services are increasing as the cost of broadband is becoming cheaper and more households have faster broadband connections. Of these households, more than half are wireless connections, making usability much simpler. In these days of insecurity, therefore, it is no surprise that advertisers are following this market which is more targetable, measurable and accountable than other media systems.

Advertisers have to be more sensitive in this current climate of where their budget is spent and with Sky+ in many homes, people are deciding to skip adverts as they playback their desired television programmes. This may well account for the decision of many to spend their reduced budget on Search Engine Placement positioning for example, as opposed to the conventional TV advertising.

Thinkbox marketing director, Lindsey Clay, is of the opinion that now that online marketing is more mature market, email promotion, classified advertising, display advertising and search advertising should be considered as separate media, instead of all being joined under the one umbrella of online advertising.

Of all the money spent on promotion online in the first half of 2009, over 60% was used on paid for search advertising. This is very well liked due to the fact that these adverts can reach exactly the right consumers for the advertisers’ products. Most internet users are also frequent users of search engines such as Google and Yahoo!, so it should be no surprise to us that businesses are opting to spend their marketing budget on search advertising.

TV advertising has not gone completely and as discussions are underway regarding promotion within TV programmes, known as product placement, this may well boost the TV advertising market again. However, now that online marketing has become prevalent, and as advertisers see positive results, this is a market for the SEO company and it is definitely worth investing.