In very short, we can say that companies normally make their choices based on the historical data they have available: unforeseen events or different market evolutions are obviously taken into account, but we are talking about variations with respect to expectations – not upheavals.
The last two years, however, have completely overturned the historical series on which investment budgets were based. Making the situation even more complex are the repercussions on the economy given by the conflict in Ukraine.
So, how do you identify the right level of investment in web marketing in such a complex context?
The effects of the pandemic on society
Let's briefly recap what we have experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic here in Italy and, with different timing and nuances, substantially throughout Europe.
Lockdowns and legal restrictions
Starting in March 2020, Italy experienced two months of strict lockdown, with extreme limitations on permitted movements, forced closure of many shops, and stringent access rules for many others.
The restrictions have been eased over time or modulated differently based on people's vaccination status, but they have never been completely removed, not even now that the state of emergency has ended.
All this has evidently led to an unparalleled wave of demand for online shopping: if entry to stores is prohibited, or limited (and therefore simply more inconvenient); if even by going to the store I still cannot try on clothes in the fitting room; if access to restaurants is limited; if road traffic is reduced due to smart working, here is that:
a much larger audience is created for e-commerce of all kinds;
a new habit of using food delivery is acquired;
investments in outdoor advertising become less attractive, and the corresponding budgets move towards investments in online visibility;
We could also mention the transformation of trade fairs, services also for the general public that move to remote solutions and much more. In short, a revolution for both companies and end users.
The psychological aspects
The phenomena described above are not only due to legal limitations in the strict sense, but also to the fear of the virus that has pushed the acquisition of new habits and has strengthened the trend of greater use of online. It is no coincidence that e-commerce revenues increased in correspondence with the peaks of infections, even when there were no changes at the legal level.
The impact on marketing investments
All this, as is easy to imagine, has led to the explosion of those e-commerce and services that were already stably present online.
In the space of a few months, we have witnessed the movement of large amounts of capital from offline to online: companies have opened new e-commerce sites and/or invested in facilities to provide remote services.
But is this a stable and predictable trend? Obviously not, and many companies have already noticed this in 2021, which had significantly lower results, for online, than those expected based on 2020.
