Sumolabs

Let's face it: the Economy is getting its ass kicked. That ass kicking will inevitably bleed into other areas. Consumer spend, confidence and marketing/advertising spend are what we need to keep a close eye on.

Let's take a moment to stop and focus on marketing and advertising.

Social media (or Social Influence Marketing) is a ubiquitous and fragmented landscape that companies have struggled with in order to leverage digital media effectively.

Add onto that the fact that with social media spend it is very hard to measure return on investment (ROI).

We know that during economic (hiccups, jitters and dry heaving) -- that ROI will be watched like a hawk, resulting in only the most accountable and measurable advertising/marketing channels being targeted with spend. Traditional marketing channels will therefore remain somewhat safe from spending cuts in a recession.

Tameka Kee, from MediaPost, presented an article discussing "Old School" ad unit performance.

For more bang for your buck, the article argues, stick to 'old fashioned' text ads. Video units, and other rich media units should be put on hold.

"I think the biggest takeaway from the data is that the current ad formats aren't very effective," said Jonathan Levitt, iPerceptions' vice president of marketing. "Brands are going to have to start looking at things like direct content integration and product placement. There's still a place for things like banners and skyscrapers, but it's much more about brand awareness than inducing conversions."

I was personally amazed that a study by iPerceptions identified that user's will click Google AdWords ads 25% of the time (I'm shocked it is that high).

Other eye openers:

- Display ads were the second-most popular: banners on the right side of the page getting clicked 20% of the time.

- Banners at the top of the page did much worse, only claiming clicks about 12% of the time

- Video or rich media units, which were only likely to get clicked 11% and 7% of the time

So what do this all mean? Two things.

In my eyes it means that either a) video and rich media ad units are such that people are unwilling to engage with them, or b) we need to think hard about how we are actually building these units (i.e. Are we still lost in print type thinking?)

Secondly, it means that your money (or your clients money) is better spent in text links and banner ads on the right than video ad units and other rich media variations. For the moment.