A recent post on TechCrunch gives great information on how well Search engine marketing is doing compared to other advertising methods:

“According to eMarketer, search ad spending will reach $10.4 billion this year, more than twice as much as advertisers will spend on display ads. More importantly for Google, search ads will represent 42 percent of all advertising spending, while display ads will account for just 21 percent of all online advertising.” -TechCrunch

You can read the full story here

The recession is among us, that cannot be denied. Although it is self-serving on my behalf, there is no better way to gain tremendous market share in your vertical and keeping your business growing than to spend more money during a recessions versus less. Quick points:
1. Unless you are selling stock in mortgage companies, chances are there are still plenty of customers who need your product or service. 
2. Unless all of your competition reads and agrees with this posting, chances are they are going to be pulling back budget to bunker down through these times, is there a better way to get your brand out there? Wouldn’t it be great to become the leader in your space? There would be no cheaper time than in a recession.
3. Unless you are a huge company with stockpiles of money in the bank, pulling back marketing dollars when the total amount of customers are shrinking could put your business in an inevitable death spiral and will take you far more cash to get out of it than just marketing.
I would love to hear comments that combat or support my theory….am I just thinking of myself here?