By Business & Finance 
By Francis Mac Aonghus, head of online, Encendo
Study reveals unveils one in 10 agencies within recruitment sector are not up to speed with digital marketing execution.
Leading digital marketing agency Encendo undertook a study in 2015 into the attitudes and investment of recruitment companies in Ireland to reveal the current climate for digital marketing.
The study was quick to highlight that 33% of recruitment firms within the recruitment sector engage in digital performance monitoring by recording their analytics every day.
Only 20% of participants admitted monitoring their analytics at least once a week, which can be seen as a proactive approach to understanding their online business output.
Surprisingly, just 11% of respondents laid claim to not knowing what their digital marketing spend was throughout the month revealing a low investment in a measurable and actionable marketing channel. The study also found that 41% did not know how much of their revenue could be attributed to digital marketing.
It’s accepted that a monthly digital marketing spend can fluctuate significantly across the recruitment sector from 27% of agencies claiming they spend less than €500 to 35% saying they spend more than €1,000.
In summary of the findings, head of online at Encendo Francis Mac Aonghus said: “When considering the data that show that the norm is a 20% or less spend on marketing overall against revenue, and digital spend is a 10-20% of that, then overall digital spend seems to be a 1-2% against revenue.
“It’s not surprising that 96% of respondents are expecting to increase or stabilise their digital marketing budgets this year, a sign of buoyancy in the industry and a will to look towards digital marketing to support on-going activity.”
Over the next 12 months social media, website improvements and SEO are expected to be the main areas of digital marketing which will see an influx of investment, with email and third party sites likely to be given less priority.
Photo above: Automotive Social
About the blogger
Francis Mac Aonghus is head of online for digital agency Encendo.
Mac Aonghus spearheads global marketing strategy including search engine optimisation, campaign performance, pay per performance advertising, and email marketing.
He has over 15 years’ experience in the digital marketing arena and contributes regularly to marketing blog and magazines.
