Branding on the rise in online advertising

Branding is back and may play more of a role in online advertising than in recent years. Online advertising industry has been dominated by direct response advertising and search engine marketing for the last several years. Are we in store for big changes this year?

Digiday recently issued a new report that found marketers will spend some 60% of their online budgets on brand ads this year, potentially more than direct-response ads for the first time in many years. Some analysts project a shift in growth prospects from search and other direct-response ads to branding or image ads.

Report highlights:
* 60% of marketers said they will move budgets from direct response to brand advertising
* 64% of marketers say they’ll increase online brand advertising budgets in 2012–(22% by more than 20%)
* 56% of marketers plan to increase online direct response advertising budgets (only 15% will do so by more than 20%)

Growth projections by brands for various ad channels

According to the survey, for brand advertisers to make that happen, the majority 68% said they need to see said, “Improved clarity around the actual return on brand advertising investment.”(Note, if you download the sponsored survey, you may get lots of solicitation emails.)

Marketers, direct response marketing is important to generate leads and sales. But, remember that its effective branding that differentiates and influences the sale.