Print drives web traffic: the proof

Posted on March 7, 2007 by Dave J.

I received a newsletter from a trade publication with this interesting case:

“The leading industry brand abruptly cut advertising, and traffic to its website quickly followed suit. While overall traffic dropped 75% in eight months, the drastic 90% decrease in direct traffic (buyers who type in a specific URL) reveals that consistent advertising frequency is vital in order to attract new buyers to a website.”

The chart shows the website going from 18,000 visitors/hits (chart shows both) a month to 4,500 over an eight month period. I’d be curious to hear how much their web-inquiries dropped during that same period.

In any case, an interesting tale of the power of trade-pub advertising. If you aren’t using print advertising, perhaps you should flip this chart and see how your site traffic could increase if you started advertising.

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  • Anonymous

    Dave – I’d be interested to know if this “brand” also cut other advertising initiatives. Often a dramatic cut in advertising reaches across all advertising venues.It sure is an interesting report.Jim (B2BMarketing_guy)

  • Anonymous

    Dave – I’d be interested to know if this “brand” also cut other advertising initiatives. Often a dramatic cut in advertising reaches across all advertising venues.It sure is an interesting report.Jim (B2BMarketing_guy)

  • Derek

    I’ve been working with traditional B2B and mail order companies for the past 10 years and worked with many successful businesses. A large number of those companies dipped their toes into e-commerce after Y2K and all have continued to do extremely well. This is due largley to their extensive knowledge and use of catalogues and fliers showing the web site address.Over the years most of these businesses have seen a growth of 10% for web and overall sales year on year. The web has not affected telephone sales, but there has been a shift from paper and faxed sales.The moto is that the web alone does not drive web sales – it has to be part of a holistic marketing effort incorporating mailshots.I know from my own experience that when I put out a mailer my web traffic will double over the following week of the mailer dropping through letter boxes.For anybody interested in mail order and B2B system please visit < HREF="http://www.delstree.com" REL="nofollow">http://www.delstree.com<>

  • Anonymous

    A good thing to advertise offline, but this is only right for local websites. OK, local or national Websites. When it comes to worldwide sites, it would be difficult :-) < HREF="http://www.layoutgarden.com" REL="nofollow" TITLE="MySpace backgrounds,MySpace layouts">http://www.layoutgarden.com<>

  • Mean Dean

    Oh baby … I’m sooooo going link up your post on this article for an upcoming post at HYCW!Thanks muchly for this excellent citation.

  • Mean Dean

    Oh baby … I’m sooooo going link up your post on this article for an upcoming post at HYCW!Thanks muchly for this excellent citation.

  • Hans

    Dave – I’ve tried a couple of years ago to launch a website through an advertising campaign in the German market, and learned an expensive lesson! Never again.It may work to advertise an ongoing website in relevant professional media, but it requires deep pockets & patience. Google advertising works well, but you need a reasonably broadly scoped site.Also e-mail marketing worked well for us, but recently, we observe an enormous saturation effect. Open rates are down from 50-60% to 25-30%. With the current background traffic we have, e-mail campaigns no longer cause the traffic peaks they used to.What still works well is promotion on relevant professional forums. One needs a disciplne though of offering a service and avoid too blatant self-promotion.

  • Hans

    Dave – I’ve tried a couple of years ago to launch a website through an advertising campaign in the German market, and learned an expensive lesson! Never again.It may work to advertise an ongoing website in relevant professional media, but it requires deep pockets & patience. Google advertising works well, but you need a reasonably broadly scoped site.Also e-mail marketing worked well for us, but recently, we observe an enormous saturation effect. Open rates are down from 50-60% to 25-30%. With the current background traffic we have, e-mail campaigns no longer cause the traffic peaks they used to.What still works well is promotion on relevant professional forums. One needs a disciplne though of offering a service and avoid too blatant self-promotion.