Owen Sagness knows that online advertising is a huge opportunity for marketers, but he believes Canadian advertisers are missing out on some of the that opportunity.
That’s why Sagness, the vice-president of MSN Canada, hosted a roundtable discussion for media on advertising and demographic targeting online yesterday at the MSN offices in Toronto. Five Canadian “marketing gurus” were invited to discuss online marketing and how their businesses handle it.
While consumers are spending more and more of their leisure time online, only 7% to 8% of marketing campaigns target online audiences, said Sagness.
“There’s a big gap between where the dollars are and where the eyeballs are,” he said. “Canadian marketers seem to be lagging.”
Queen’s University marketing professor Ken Wong agreed. “Canadian marketers are still a little bit sloppy frankly,” Wong said.
The online world is still a new and scary place for many marketers, and they worry that online marketing does not make a strong return on their investment, he added. That will change, as online marketing will be continually integrated with all advertising campaigns. “It will become an essential part of every media run,” he said.
Wong pointed out that Procter & Gamble, the largest advertiser in Canada, has reportedly decided to allocate up to 20% of its marketing budget to online marketing.
Meanwhile Jeff Lancaster, chair of the search committee of the Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada said that search advertising shouldn’t be treated like traditional advertising mediums. The best way to increase a company’s web presence is to work with online marketing experts, he said. “[Digital] agencies don’t understand online well, you have to go with the specialists.”
The conversation also covered the benefits of being able to reach specific and niche markets through search.
While print, television and radio advertisements seek out consumers, search advertising is different, said Ken Headrick, product and marketing director of MSN’s online services group. “It’s not you targeting the customer. It’s the customer targeting you.”
Also there to take part were
