I came across this research brief today: Tech Marketers Want to See ROI From Their Media Spend, the content of which I’m sure is not breaking news to frequent readers here.

Old news is new news:

Some highlights from the brief:

  • The majority of digital spending is concentrated on branded content sites (41%)
  • Spending on ad networks is on the rise and fast approaching spending on paid search
  • Marketers are interested in ROI, audience composition, targeting, and reach
  • Lead gen, custom content and targeting rank as three most important opportunities
  • Marketers are investing in a variety of custom programs including collateral, webinars, videos and the creation of new websites

Time to step up your game:

Like I said, I’m sure none of this is breaking news for frequent readers here; however, it is a reminder to step up your game in 2011. For some time now many online marketers enjoyed a competitive advantage by running lackluster post-click marketing programs because no one else was doing it, or really understood how to do it. Therefore by just showing up with a few tested & optimized landing pages you won half the battle. But that’s not going to be enough any more.

Last week I was at the Online Marketing Summit and I can tell you: there was a huge focus on marketing measurement and optimization. Everyone was talking about testing, conversion optimization, and landing pages. So how should you keep the competitive advantage now?

Do more.

Do more, more, more for less:

Create more content, more landing pages, more microsites, more lead gen forms, run more tests, generate more traffic.

And do it all with less spend by converting that traffic like crazy.

If your team hasn’t expanded or been given more budget this year, make sure you have a systematic process in place and a good tool set so you can get more done with the same resources. This year should be all about scaling your post-click marketing program up.

My suggestions for helping you do this:

  • Work with templates to reduce the amount you spend on creative pieces and your time to launch new pages/microsites
  • Use a codefree testing tool to reduce the time you spend waiting for IT to run your tests
  • Measure only what matters to reduce the time you spend wading through useless data

Doing the above three things will ensure you’re managing your time well.

Instead of worry about getting pieces ready to launch and test, you should focus on creating quality content and providing value to visitors. Have a process and a tool in place to take care of the rest.

Create good stuff, get it in front of the right people, and convert those people with optimized pages.

Do it well, do it often and do a lot of it to keep your competitive advantage this year.