The report was published in Vietnam e-Business Index (EBI) 2015 and made public at a recent press conference to introduce the Vietnam Online Marketing Forum to be held late this August. The EBI 2015 was based on a survey among 5,000 enterprises across the country, up nearly 50 per cent, compared to 2014.

According to Nguyen Thanh Hung, chairman of the Vietnam e-Commerce Association (VECOM), at the EBI 2015 indicated that the number of e-commerce transactions grew sharply against 2014 and transactions were diversified. However, e-commerce businesses have yet to work out effective solutions to win consumer confidence.

Tuan Ha, CEO of Vinalink said online marketing has seen a rapid increase. In 2015, to better serve customers, businesses invested more in applications for e-commerce on mobile phones with a growth of 200 per cent. Many online marketing agencies have been used by sellers such as Facebook, Google, and Over-The-Top (OTT) application.

According to a survey made by VECOM, government agencies and businesses (G2B) have made significant progress. Some 26 per cent of websites launched mobile platforms last year. However, they lacked able human resources and did not pay much for the e-commerce performance.

Under the survey, 95 per cent of businesses used email in their business activities. The ratio of business using email to make business contracts has been growing in the last three years while the ratio of businesses using email to advertise or introduce their products has been going down. It clearly reflects a new trend in online advertising.

Some 53 per cent of surveyed businesses said they spent below VND10 million (US$444) on online marketing, or equivalent to 2014. It said 12 per cent of surveyed businesses spending more than VND50 million on online marketing.

The most popular marketing social channels are social networks, search engines, e-newspapers and emails. Marketing through search engines has been rated as the one with highest efficiency.

Some 30 per cent of businesses said advertisements on search tools gained high efficiency. It is 25 per cent of advertisements on social networks. Only 14 per cent of surveyed businesses said that advertisements on mobile phones brought high efficiency, while 38 per cent of surveyed businesses said advertisements on mobile phones brought low efficiency.

This result was similar to the Nielsen Global Trust in Advertising Survey, Q1 2015. The report showed that Vietnamese consumers believed mostly in advertisements on search engines. It is followed by social networking, online videos, online banners, while the lowest ratio is on advertisements on mobile devices.

Nguyen Trong Tho, CEO of iNet said Facebook video commercials have been very effective for sellers and were better than image advertisements.

According to industry insiders, online marketing has an intimate relationship with online shopping, many Vietnamese firms do not pay their attention to this. Some businesses have already used online marketing services but it has seen low efficiency. On the other hand, Vietnamese businesses still largely depend on a small number of providers for cross-border advertising services. The local market share of online marketing is quite modest.

According to eMarketer an independent market research company that provides insights and trends related to digital marketing, media and commerce, the global spending ratio for online marketing account is high, and this spending is growing. In the Asia-Pacific region, this ratio was 32.3 per cent in 2015 and it is estimated to increase by 36.3 per cent in 2016.

EMarketer predicts that this year, spending on online marketing will reach US$2.9 billion in Thailand, $2.7 billion in Indonesia, and $7 billion in India. In the United States, online advertising will increase 15.4 per cent this year and will achieve a sales revenue of more than $68 billion, accounting for 32.6 per cent of the entire advertising market

To spur online marketing, industry insiders said businesses need to pay much attention to investment, strategy, and product. The success in online marketing is to maintain connection with customers and sell products on their e-commerce websites and social networks.

VNS