The weak economy is driving online retailers to shift their marketing budgets and cut back on search marketing, according to a study by Forrester Research on behalf of Shop.org.
The study surveyed 117 online retailers in the throes of a relatively abysmal first quarter about how they planned to allocate their online marketing budget. While a third will be spending less over all, over half of them (56%) said they would be scaling back search marketing specifically, indicating a plan to reallocate funds toward other venues like email and social media.