What's Next for Internet Marketing

Internet Marketing is changing faster than we might think. Where’s it going next.

Elsewhere I’ve posted in this blog about how our marketing strategy is dictated by our business strategy. I’ve also reported on our amateurish forays into the world of Internet Marketing. I’ve explained Adwords marketing is obviously appropriate for some businesses, but not ours.

But this thinking has always been based on an assumption that people do actually click on sponsored links. It just didn’t suit us to compete for those clicks. Well it seems that assumption might be a mistake.

We got told several months ago that 93% of college graduates never click on sponsored links (not sure of the source, but it makes sense in some cases). Now we have a report from ComScore which gives a different perspective on the same subject.

“Indeed, the number of people who click on display ads in a month has fallen, from 32% of Web users in July 2007 to only 16% in March 2009. Worse still, an even smaller core of consumers — representing just 8% of the Internet user base — accounts for the vast majority, or 85%, of all clicks.
In 2007, comScore, Starcom and Tacoda found that heavy clickers represented 6% of U.S. Internet users, moderate clickers accounted for 10% and light clickers accounted for 16%.
By March 2009, those numbers had dropped substantially in each case, to 4% of Internet users for heavy clickers, 4% for moderate clickers and 8% for light clickers.”

This would suggest the whole model of advertisement supported publishing, and searching, of content is rapidly approaching the end of the road.

Why would anybody pay to get clicks from people who click on everything, and amounting to only 10% of those using the web?

If the number of people clicking ads is dropping whilst competition for those clicks is increasing how can anybody make money creating content to attract the views to get the clicks?

I’m not an Internet Marketing Expert, but can be a fairly astute accountant at times. These numbers just don’t add up, and therefore the market won’t last.

What do you think will come along to replace it?

My guess is Content Led Selling.