According to the Internet Advertising Bureau, revenue generated from online advertising in the third quarter was up 2% over the previous three months. It looks like the growth in revenue is slowing from quarter to quarter. This doesn’t surprise me at all. The main focus of internet advertisers is banner advertising and paid search. With rampant click fraud and a general apathy towards banners, these avenues are producing less of a return. I certainly expect the growth to continue to slow over the coming months. One area where clients are seeing extraordinary ROI is in blog marketing. The price point is very low and the return is very high. It reminds me of the heyday of paid search when you could get traffic for 1 cent a click.

The question for retailers is, how long did it take you to jump on the paid search wagon. If you waited, were you disappointed, and will you repeat the same mistake with blog marketing?