How to manage SEO campaigns during economic downturns
Keep your marketing strong in tough economic times with insights on consumer behavior, market analysis and long-term positioning.
Topic: Recession
Marketing in a recession: How to avoid 5 common mistakes
Instead of making hasty and costly marketing decisions, learn how to position your brand to survive and thrive over the long haul.
What B2B marketers must know in the face of a potential recession
Let's unpack how a looming recession impacts B2B marketers and ways to navigate the landscape we're already in.
SEM career playbook: Overview of a growing industry
These are the core titles, roles, tasks and responsibilities for search marketing positions, as you move from junior to senior roles.
Google search ad revenue grows, Microsoft drops, as recession fears mount
Alphabet's Q2 and Microsoft's Q4 earnings weren't quite on target, but not as bad as some may have expected.
4 tips to maximize your ad spend and protect the customer experience
How to ensure no ad dollar is wasted in an economic downturn
Why digital commerce marketers shouldn’t ‘go dark’ during COVID [Video]
Keeping up your marketing momentum is more important than ever as shopping habits shift.
Amid the economic gloom, some hopeful indicators emerge for marketers
Consumer confidence and spending have ticked up as people receive stimulus money and anticipate the lockdowns ending.
As advertisers cut back, U.S. paid search spend estimate is slashed by billions
eMarketer argues paid-search is more vulnerable now than in past recessions.
COVID-Consumers: Pessimistic, but spending more online
A large majority of consumers expect a recession next year but are spending up to 30% more online, according to new survey data.
Amazon could win big in the post-coronavirus retail economy
The company said it was hiring 100,000 new employees to meet increased demand.
Google Starts Shopping For Businesses Again
Google CEO sees one small acquisition a month from Reuters reports Google’s CEO as saying they are back in the business of acquiring businesses. He told Reuters, “acquisitions are turned on again at Google and we are doing our normal maneuvers, which is small companies.” “My estimate would be one-a-month acquisitions and these are largely […]
Google Has “Stabilized,” Reports $5.5 Billion In Q2 Revenues
Google just reported second quarter earnings of $5.52 billion, representing “an increase of 3% compared to the second quarter of 2008.” The first quarter of 2009 was $5.51 billion, by comparison. So growth was flat quarter over quarter. According to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Google’s business has “stabilized” and has seen growth in certain areas in […]
PPC Recession Strategy: 7 Reasons To Keep Bidding On Your Brand Terms
When faced with budget cuts, many marketers stop bidding on their brand and trademark terms. But doing so is a mistake. While it may be a quick and easy way to limit spend, it can negatively impact overall campaign performance. To achieve the greatest return from a search engine marketing campaign, most brand owners should […]
Report: SEM Spend Down, ROI Up As Marketers Adapt To Recession Trends
Search marketing platform provider Efficient Frontier released a report on Q1 2009 SEM trends. The report is based on data collected from Efficient Frontier’s U.S. clients “and covers 84 billion impressions and 785 million clicks on search and content ads on Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Live Search.” At the highest level Efficient Frontier said overall […]
Report: Lack Of Buying Searchers Leading To Depressing Search Ad Market
I have been fascinated watching how the search ad space has been impacted by the current global recession. Rimm-Kaufman has posted early first quarter PPC data showing the weak trends in retail for search advertisers. Let me summarize his retail client data: Approximately 20% reduction in sales from search ads from last year Approximately 20% […]
SEO Careers In A Recession
First off, I would like to start by reminding everyone to participate in the SEMPO.org 2009 in-house salary survey. Running for the second year, this benchmark survey provides direct industry feedback, from in-house professionals like you, on the realities of compensation in this profession. Agency side folks, don’t worry, will be launching the second annual […]
Layoffs At Microsoft Widely Expected To Be Announced This Week
A year ago this would have seemed impossible: layoffs at Microsoft. Until relatively recently Redmond was saying that it would be able to weather the recession without significant disruption. However cost cutting is now the order of the day and no one appears immune. The layoff rumors first appeared in December and have steadily resurfaced. […]
Obama Stimulus, Predictions And Search
In retrospect it appears that relative search query volumes (Obama vs. McCain) did presage the outcome of the November election. Now it appears they predicted the recession as well. The Yahoo Search Blog says that search query trends subtly predicted the recession long before its formal designation by economists: Though we learned only a month […]
Report: Microsoft To Lay Off 15,000 Workers
There are reports that Microsoft is getting ready to lay off 17% of their workforce on this new year. The layoffs are expected to happen on or around January 15th. So it looks like the rumors are right and this recession is going to hit one of the most successful technology companies of all time. […]
SearchBiz: The Economy Takes Its Toll On Google & Why Twitter Rejected Facebook’s Acquisition Overtures
The buzz today comes from the Wall Street Journal article, which you’ve probably already seen, called “Google Gears Down for Tougher Times.” In a related post, Silicon Alley Insider summarizes the piece with more than a hint of schadenfreude. The thrust of the WSJ story is that Google is trying to cut costs and reduce […]
MSFT CEO Ballmer to Yahoo: No New Bid
Speaking at the “Web 2.0” conference in San Francisco earlier this week Yahoo CEO seemed to invite Microsoft to make another acquisition bid for the portal. “To this day the best thing for Microsoft to do is buy Yahoo,” the BBC quotes Yang telling interviewer John Battelle. This morning, from Australia, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer […]
Google Institutes ‘Unofficial Hiring Freeze’
I’m struck that people always seem interested in stories that appear to reveal Google as “an ordinary company,” subject to the same rules and economic pressures as others. That’s partly schadenfreude, partly about Google as internet bellwether and partly about Google’s own self-promoted uniqueness and related curiosity about how long it can be sustained. But […]
Yahoo Plans Major Layoffs & Cost Cuts
TechCrunch reports Yahoo is planning of laying off between 1,000 and 3,000 employees. Yahoo Plans Major Cost Cuts, Including Layoffs from the Wall Street Journal expect the cuts to start as early as tomorrow. The cuts come after Yahoo hired consulting firm Bain & Co. to cut costs and improve efficiencies.
Google Earnings Beat Expectations, Shares Climb
Many Wall Street analysts and Google watchers were anticipating that Google might “come down to Earth” with its Q3 earnings today, given the turmoil in the US economy. But in fact the company soundly beat expectations and posted very healthy revenues, driven by Google’s dominance of the only strong segment of online advertising — search. […]
Rumor: Additional Cuts Coming To Yahoo
AllThingsD and, picking up on that post, Silicon Alley Insider speculate about potential, forthcoming job cuts at Yahoo to streamline consumer-facing and ad-focused business units.
Smooth Sailing Through The Rough Waters Of A Down Economy
Economic waves rise and fall and Internet retailers are as vulnerable to capsizing as any business. Why do some local businesses seem to ride it out more easily than others? What can you do to help your business stick around until the next break in the storm? Here are some common sense answers to how […]
Will Google Suffer In A Recession?
Will Google get hurt by a recession, as some are wondering? According to statements made at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland yesterday, the answer to that question appears to be “no.” The Financial Times reports the view of several tier-two Google execs who expressed confidence in the continuing growth of the company’s revenues […]
Day 2: Search Stocks & Is Search Recession Proof?
Let’s do the stock thing again. As with yesterday, the chart above shows Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO), and Microsoft (MSFT) against the NASDAQ, over the past month. The key difference is that while the latter three stabilized, Google kept dropping. That leads some to wonder if search is going to be in trouble. A closer […]
Report: Digg Wants To Sell For $300 Million (Or More)
It’s now basically public information that social news site Digg is shopping itself. VentureBeat cites a “reliable source” in saying the company has hired private investment firm Allen & Company to sell Digg. However, the site has apparently been on the block for many months (or longer). TechCrunch has a history of the sale rumors.
As US Economy Weakens, Ad Spend Steady Online But Drops In Traditional Media
MediaPost has two stories today that start to answer a larger question about how the Internet will fare in a weakening economy. For some time people have been speculating that if the economy hits a meaningful downturn or heads into recession, what will happen to the Internet ad spend? The question is now being answered […]