After a disappointing holiday season, traditional brick-and-mortar and e-commerce retailers are still hopeful for 2009 and are putting their money in online advertising.

Among the different strategies, search marketing spending is expected to increase in 2009.

“Retail sector search spending will grow in 2009, regardless of what becomes of some individual retailers,” said Michael McVeigh, associate director of strategic analy sis for Zeta Interactive. “The major ity of [retail] advertisers still have clear untapped ROI in search mar keting. The economic downturn is focusing retailers’ attention and budget on efficient, measurable marketing programs, and search marketing continues to deliver.”

“Retailers front-loaded their spend this quarter, which is com­pletely different from historical holiday seasons where retailers would really ante up in the latter half to drive traffic,” said Roger Barnette, president of SearchIgnite.

Macys.com and Bloomingdales.com use email marketing and search marketing tactics to drive shoppers to their websites, and the result was a 39.1% bump in sales in December, going against many other trends.

“People were clicking over to retail sites and purchasing after coming from their e-mail applications, indicating retailers were able to get some traction from their promo tional e-mails,” Lipsman said.

In 2009, forecasters predict that online marketing will change its tone from big discounts to promoting the overall value, much as Hyundai si already doing with the Hyundai Assurance plan, which enables new car buyers to sell their car back to Hyundai if they lose their job.

“This is getting the consumer to say, ‘I might think about a Hyundai,’ which is exactly what marketing is supposed to do,” said Suhr.

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