Why use Internet Marketing? It’s a decent enough question after all if your magazine ads are working, why change? First of all, the question should be more like, why should I spend more in Internet Marketing like SEO, Pay-per-click and Social media than I do on traditional forms of advertisement?

In order to answer these questions we look at a great new source for marketing data called think insights from Google which has all the below marketing stats:

• According to McKinsey & Co. Advertisers get a 7:1 ROI on search.
• If you are buying traditional media, remember the cell phone because 71% of smartphone users have searched after seeing an ad.
• 82.6% of Internet users use search according to eMarketer
• 70% of smartphone users use their phone while shopping per Google
• 30% of all restaurant search are done on a mobile phone. This is from Google internal data.

So, for anyone running a marketing program and planning for 2012; the world is moving faster and faster into a networked age. Traditional media continues to have a place in today’s marketing; but it is simply a means for people to search you out giving your competitors equal opportunity to present themselves during that search.

So…some takeaways while planning for 2012:

• Your search budget should increase because if you aren’t being found your competitors are. On the flip side of the coin, if your competitors aren’t busy with SEO, then you have an advantage.
• Your search budget consists of two levers: 1. Get and keep your website search engine optimized. Measure traffic from every keyword and where you rank and 2. You need to spend money on PPC so you can capture competitor traffic and prevent your competitor from bidding on your name, products and industry.
• You site needs to be mobile optimized. While its great that any website looks good on an iPhone, the ones that look great will bring in foot traffic and make it easier to shop.