Marketing budgets have increased in the past year – and are being used to fund high-return online lead generation.

So says a report from Econsultancy and Clash-Media, the online customer acquisition specialist, which shows that 53 per cent of marketing budgets for UK, European and US companies have increased in the face of slow economic conditions.

Sixty-one per cent of spend is now made online, compared to 51 per cent last year, with companies citing cost-effectiveness, the ability to target prospects and better ROI as reasons for heading towards online lead generation with their extra budgets.

According to the research, paid search has become less popular, with 12 per cent fewer companies using it compared to last year, while the more measurable and ROI-driven email marketing has increased by two per cent.

One key trend is for organisations to take prospective customers found online and attempt to convert them through offline channels. The two most popular conversion methods remain email/online transaction (75 per cent) and phone (58 per cent); 70 per cent of businesses are now looking to convert online leads offline – either entirely or in part.

Simon Wajcenberg (pictured below), CEO of Clash-Media, said: “It’s great news for the industry that the majority of marketers are seeing increased budgets – and very few are seeing a reduction – and that they can see the benefits of online lead generation.

“What did surprise us about the results is how few people – 35 per cent – saw the benefits of performance-based campaigns. This leads us to believe that not enough providers are delivering transparent campaigns, which inhibits their ability to be performance-based.”

The growth in online marketing channels
Some of the respondents to the survey provided insight into why they are moving even more budget towards online channels:

• “Better comparability between online and offline Cost per Lead has enabled us to shift budgets from off- to online.”
• “Offline is too expensive and doesn’t get the same speed of responses as online. Online gives faster calls to action and results too.”
• “It has become more important to measure the return on investment, considering typical advertising/marketing budget cuts.”

   

Simon Wajcenberg