Marketing Forecast from Ad-ology

As most media companies know, the real estate advertising industry is largely local. Earlier this year, Borrell Associates predicted that real estate agents would spend about $21.8 billion on advertising in 2011, an 8% increase over last year. Attendees at the Local Mobile Advertising Conference, hosted by Borrell Associates in Chicago this week, heard that 44% of a typical realtor’s ad budget is spent online. And now, the spending is going mobile, a trend that could pose a challenge for media companies that haven’t yet entered the mobile fray.

Media companies and mobile marketing platform providers who gathered at the Borrell Associates Local Mobile Advertising Conference in Chicago this week, heard about the growing opportunity in the automotive sector. The good news is the automotive vertical market is growing quickly. The bad news is that competitors are entering the mobile space daily, competing to siphon off the flow of money that has been going to traditional media.

Much has been written about the importance of buying the right keywords for paid search. But a new study goes a step further in understanding human search behavior patterns. Researchers believe marketers who get this right can improve the results of their search investment.

Shoppers have a message for retailers: Get mobile in a hurry. And while shoppers are looking for mobile apps to help them locate stores, products and prices, retailers are finding that their mobile app process is falling behind. At the same time, retailers are discovering there may be more value in optimizing their websites for tablets.

When consumers are looking for the best hotels or airfares these days, they mostly turn to their computers. Travel marketers have noticed. So far this year, spending on the travel category has increased by 10% and it shows no signs of slowing down. But it’s the digital component of travel marketing spending that’s really changing.

Marketers remain intensely focused on daily deals. And, as I noted last week, experts predict this marketing format could be valued at over $4 billion by 2015. With all of this attention on the industry, researchers are exploring who makes the best targets for these programs and how operators might expand their reach.