Monday, January 28, 2008

Ad Dollars Focused on Specialty Sites

The Wall Street Journal had a special technology pull out section today and in there they cited some interesting stats about where ad dollars are being spent. According their stats here is how ad dollar spending breaks down...

44% with Internet Companies, i.e. Monster, Google, specialty interest sites, etc.
33% Online Newspapers
10% Online Yellow Pages
9.3% Local Television sites

This year (2008) local online advertising is expected to rise 48% according to Media research firm Borrell Associates, led by growth in car, job, and real estate ads.

The numbers don't surprise me at all. For years Internet marketing consultants, like myself, have been telling web site owners that content is king. The more content you have the better you will do in search engines, getting inbound links, and now it appears ad revenue. The fact the yellow pages still squeaked out 10% DOES surprise me. I can't imagine a more outdated advertising venue than the phone book and to simply take an outdated advertising medium and put it on the web and still get 10% of the dollars seems a bit surprising. However I am reasonably sure that number will continue to fall as more dollars are allocated to specialty sites and online newspapers.

For those you out there that are content producers you better put on shades because the future is going to be bright. For those you out that think you build a web site once and update or add to it once every 34 years whether it needs it or not better get your act together. Content is the growth potential of the future. Either learn how to create it or buy it. If you don't the power of online economics will make you a dinosaur headed towards extinction.