Lead Generation and Internet Marketing in Austria

The Internet in Austria

Austria is a landlocked central European country that covers 83,855 square kilometres (32,377 sq ml) and has an estimated population of 8,217,280 out of which there are 6,143,600 internet users. With an internet penetration of 74.8 percent and internet user growth of 192.6 percent in the 10 years up to 2010, Austria is an excellent prospect for lead generation and internet marketing in general. In addition, 63.7 percent of Austrian households access the internet via broadband connections which is an improvement of roughly 618 percent on 2003 figures. The average internet speed in the world is 1.8Mbps and Austria is above the world average at 3.76Mbps, just below the UK which has an average internet speed of 3.93Mbps. With a mobile usage of 11,733 million this suggests that every Austrian has a mobile phone with 30 percent having at least two or a registered USB modem requiring a simcard. With 3G handset penetration of 37 percent, Austria is in the top ten countries for 3G mobile ownership and this indicates the potential of mobile internet marketing using social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. Facebook penetration in Austria is 30.19 percent whilst the average Facebook CPC is $0.66.

Internet Marketing

The two most visited sites in Austria are Google.at followed by Facebook and this would suggest that these two media channels are the ones to target for Austrian internet market penetration. However, there are other channels that can both lend to and support both natural Google search and Facebook in Austria and a close look should be given to YouTube in Austria. YouTube is the 4th most visited site in Austria but has an even greater potential when one considers that an average of 42 years of YouTube videos are watched through Facebook every day throughout the world. This would suggest that lead generation techniques that encompass video marketing tools embedded into Facebook, which has a relatively low CPC of $0.66, would compliment a robust on and off-page SEO campaign in Austria. The Interactive Internet Bureau in Austria can assist internet marketers in building online brands and help to nurture an understanding of the possibilities of internet marketing in Austria.

Social Networking on the Move

There are 2.48 million Facebook users in Austria which is around a 27 percent increase over the previous 12 months from May 2010. This figure shows a remarkable improvement for a country that was initially slow to embrace social networking in a big way. This indicates that more and more people are opening up to social networking in Austria which presents an increasing potential for Facebook and similar social networks to become viable tools for internet marketing. According to a recent survey 85 percent of Facebook users in Austria are under the age of 19 and 30 percent of mobile users access Facebook from their mobile phones. With 3G handset penetration being relatively high in Austria (30.19 percent) this represents a ready market for Facebook and YouTube video marketing via mobiles. T-Mobile and Nokia Siemens announced in January 2011 that they would be partnering to improve the GSM internet connection speeds in Austria and report that internet speeds of 21Mbps will be available using mobile internet access via T-mobile. They further commented that speeds of up to 42Mbps will be possible. This suggest that now is a good time to invest in various internet marketing and lead generation campaigns in Austria in order to be better positioned and experienced when mobile data speeds improve. Improved mobile data speeds will facilitate the integration of video streaming and marketing across all online marketing channels in Austria and increase the number of mobile internet users.

Austrian Economy

Austria is considered as the 11th richest country in the world in terms of GDP per capita which is $39,634. Austria has historically been economically dependant on Germany due to strong trading ties but more recently this dependency has become less after Austria became a member of the European Union and developed closer trading ties with European member economies. Austria has an unemployment rate of 4.8 percent which is 45 percent lower than the US and 38 percent lower than the UK. These figures are potential indicators of a healthy market of more employed people accessing the internet from work or home, with more disposable income and purchasing power.