Provide Commerce (PRVD) on online marketing (quotes from the conf call)

Provide Commerce (ticker: PRVD) has some interesting things to say about online marketing on its conference call:

… there has been a disproportionate increase in costs in some online advertising channels... Fortunately, we saw some of this online price pressure coming three years ago and tested our very first catalogue for Mother's Day of 2003.

Because we were disciplined and able to measure every marketing dollar we spend, we are able to focus our dollars where we believe they are most effective. For example, in fiscal year 2004, approximately 70 percent of our marketing dollars were spent on online channels such as the portals, Search and affiliates; and 30 percent on offline channels such as catalogue, direct mail, print, radio, et cetera.

Due to our shifting costs and our sensitivity to efficient spending, we anticipate that in fiscal 2005 our online spending will be closer to 60 percent as we move more dollars to the offline channels.

(Quotes from the CCBN StreetEvents transcript.)

Quick comment: Smart e-commerce companies are starting to realize that the increase in PPC ad prices is a threat to their future profitability. That pushes them to other forms of marketing.