Online marketing – Numbers & Facts..

We are permanently monitoring relevant news and reading studies in the world of marketing. Some of our most interesting findings dealing with "mobile marketing" are gathered on this page. We organized the information into the following categories:

 

Internet Usage | Online Marketing Overall | Search Engines | Viral Marketing | Sources

Internet Usage

AGOF Study "Internet Facts": 57% of all Germans are online. The average daily use is 73 minutes (as of 09/2005).
A study of MSN in Europe confirmed the Internet being the most popular information resource - ahead of friends, family and newspapers.
The Internet pulls teenagers away from TV and radio. They spend more time online and less time in front of the TV.
25% of the total media consumption time takes place online among 15-24 year olds in Europe.
11 - 29 year olds are learning about new trends mostly on the web (86%), followed by TV, radio, movies and their mobile phones.
97% of all students are online. Most of them will stay online through their entire life.
Here is a parallel to the real world: The first impression has decisive character and is already being established after 50 milliseconds.

Online Marketing Overall

75% of all users are being upset by pop-up banners or ads.
A study confirmed that the average banner click rate is only 0.22%.
Banners and pop-ups are considered a distraction when web surfers looking for information or entertainment.

Search Engines

85% of web surfers are looking for websites via search engines.
Consumers are using search engines before doing an online purchase in 50% of all cases.
At the early stage of a search more general terms like "sneakers" are preferred to a brand name. Only 18-25% of all searches at this stage are for a specific product name.
57,2% of all search engine users are first trying to get an overview of the product offers on the web.
29,4% of web surfers are using search engines at the beginning of their product search as well as right before the actual purchase.
53% of all surveyed Internet users prefer regular search engine listings (by algorithmic indexing) and don't click on paid ads like Google AdWords (PPC).
About 90% of the search engine users don't go beyond the top 30 search engine results.
Only 12% of German corporate websites meet the minimum criteria of search engines for websites.
Here is a positive example for effective search engine marketing: Reifen.com - a German tire vending site - was able to increase their orders by 2000% within a year.
Larry Page confirmed that Google's algorithm includes over 200 parameters that can influence the ranking of a website.
54% of all surveyed companies stated that PPC (pay per click) is going to be more important for them in 2006. 40% stated that the importance will stay the same and 4% are planning to reduce their PPC activities.
The United States have over 8 million bloggers, France has over 3 million, Germany about 200,000.

Viral Marketing

67% of the US consumers admit to being influenced in their purchasing decisions by personal recommendations.
Many top decision makers (mostly CEO's or CIO's) are relying on recommendations of colleagues, consultants or family.
The focus doesn't need to be on reaching as many people as possible but rather to reach the "recommendation givers".
Think of 30,000,000 viewers of a movie being influenced by 3,000,000 that were influenced by only 3,000 initially. Getting through to the first 3 thousand should be the primary task.
25% of all surveyed companies are using viral marketing. This number is up from 14.9% in 2003.
Viral Marketing campaigns are most successful if they are providing fun to their audience.
A well produced web video adapts to the expectations of the Internet surfers. It is not perceived as intrusive, unwanted advertising. This allows a viewer to recommend a video to his / her social environment (multiplier effect).
The intensity of a successful viral campaign is hard to match. Viral content often has a different status than non-permitted advertising. The readiness to deal with a message and product is way above average.
Online 10% of web surfers are accessing a video directly at the homepage of the clip. The other 90% are following recommendations, i.e. email links.
Viral Marketing is perfectly able to compete with TV campaigns.
Unfortunately many great viral concepts aren't planned well enough.
The shortcomings can often start with the seeding - the placement of content in blogs, forums and other platforms that ar specific to your target group.
It is important to consult with specialists during the planning and the execution phase of a viral campaign.

Sources

Absatzwirtschaft.de
"Buzz" by Marian Salzman, Ira Matathia, Ann O`Reilly
Google.de
Internet-facts – AGOF
ibusiness.de
"Marketing Outreagously" by Jon Spoelstra
Market Researchers Fittkau & Maaß: "WWW-Benutzer-Analyse W3B"
Media Consumption Study by the European Advertising Association (EIAA)
Search Before the Purchase
Spiegel.de
Study by Carleton University in Ottawa "Behaviour & Information Technology"
Study about SEO of German corporate websites
Timescout Study
Werbeanzeige.de
W&V innovation, Edition 3/2005
"Your Marketing Sucks" by Mark Stevens
..