Online Media Stats That Make Me Feel Great About '09!

When driving to work just after Christmas, I was listening to an interview with an e-commerce company CEO who said something that made me laugh. She said, "In 09, flat is the new up." If you did the same in final three months of 2008 as you did during the same period in 2007, she said you were ok. Well, I say, let's not be content with flat just yet. Let's raise our cups to a new year that will defy expectations!

With all the doom and gloom projected, it still does seem that budgets are still migrating online. Unlike the last burst bubble, this burst is aimed squarely at everything but online marketing. Wow, does that feel good. (I guess all that "pain in the you know what" measurement stuff we online marketers push all the time is paying off.) It also could be that our budgets are often still a pretty small percentage of overall budgets in the grand scheme of things and we have a long way to go.

From where I sit, the outlook for '09 still looks pretty good and in some cases, better than '09. So I am not ready to be content with "flat" just yet. If you find yourself not feeling quite as chipper and enthusiastic about the future of online as I am, here are some stats that may help you get to the other side of this recession, depression, downturn -- whatever you want to call it.

• 64 percent of business-to-business marketers said they would be launching new campaigns on 2009, according to B2B Online.
  
  
• As late as October 2008, 11 research firms and authoritative sources said online ad spending should continue to grow between 12 and 19.4 percent in 2009, according to data published by eMarketer.
  
  
• By 2012, Kelsey Group analysts expect the interactive share of global ad spending will reach 21 percent.
  
  
• 72 percent of the marketers responding to a Forrester Research study in May 2008 said that even in a recession their online marketing budgets would increase or stay the same. And, "The New York Times" characterized online marketing and media as one of the "recession-proof corners" during a downturn.
  
  
• In December 2008, Mediapost reported: "WPP's GroupM unit projects online ad spending will expand 10% in 2009, a marked dip from its 22% rate of growth in 2008, but still a double-digit rate of expansion amid a global economic ad recession...Despite the continuing slowdown in the expansion of the online advertising economy, its share of advertising budgets will expand significantly during 2009 as most other major media remain flat or decline."

I know some reports state there's a "slowdown" in online's growth, but it's key to remember that these reports are referring to a slowdown in growth. So according to the analysts, the media, and from what I can see here on the ground, it looks like all of us in online media are going to be ok and if I have my way, great!

Oh yeah, one last little stat that made me happy:

Harry Gold (that's me -- with help from Bianca Garcia, my co-author of this particular article) made the ClickZ's 10 Most Popular Experts' Columns of 2008, with "Seven Ways to Advertise on Facebook."

OK, so we are in position 10. But hey, we are still in the top 10!

Happy marketing in 09!