But how can your company make the most of the crisis?
Before we discuss how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting online ad spending, consider changing consumer behavior.
We are seeing an unprecedented increase in people staying indoors and not going out.
This means that people spend a significant part of their lives online.
And we will most likely see this behavior continue for a considerable time even after the pandemic ends.
Thus, the following trends are observed:
People are spending more time online.
Companies and their marketing teams are increasingly uncertain when making decisions about advertising investment.
People are waiting for governments to ease restrictions so they taiwan phone code can "get back to normal."
People's purchasing power has decreased significantly.
So how can brands reconcile these trends and make smart decisions about their advertising spend?
COVID-19: The current landscape of advertising spending
The coronavirus was initially compared to the 2008 financial crisis, but as time went on, we saw more and more associations with the Great Depression of the 1930s.
As the crisis has worsened, it looks like we are facing the biggest recession in the global economy since then.
Pandemic impact on consumers
With global unemployment figures reaching record levels, almost no country is exempt from this trend.
Spain is seeing a significant increase in the number of people applying for unemployment benefits, which is also reflected in the number of searches for this keyword.
Advertising Spending - Searches for the keyword unemployment
And this, of course, negatively impacts buyer confidence and consumer spending, even for those least affected by the coronavirus crisis.
However, according to SEMrush data, the keyword "online shopping" skyrocketed in March worldwide to over 27,000 searches per month.
In the case of Spain, and after the moment of “collective hysteria” for online shopping experienced in March and which coincided with the start of the crisis in the country, we see that in April the number of searches decreased considerably although it continues to remain at levels much higher than the average searches for this keyword before COVID-19.