When it comes to online advertisement, are we putting the 'cart before the horse'?

Most of us are advertising first and optimizing for increased page conversion rates later
(or never)

A recent survey done by the Backbone IT Group concludes that over 80 percent of business websites are 'Throwing Away Sales'.

Two interesting  points from the same survey:

• Just 11 percent of sampled businesses were using some form of Conversion Rate Optimization, compared to 75 percent employing Search Engine Optimization. 

• Websites increasing visitor conversion rates by just a few percent typically double or even triple the number of sales or enquiries generated. The impact of Conversion Rate Optimization on bottom-line profitability can be remarkable.

Forrester estimates that Interactive Marketing Spend will increase from $18b in 2007 to $61b over the next 4 ½ years, and that search spend will triple in 5 years. Even in the context of all this spending conversion rates are typically low. MarketingSherpa reports average rates being less than 4% while Fireclick reports general conversion rates that are closer to 2%.

With billions of dollars being spent generating such poor results, why wouldn’t online marketing professionals invest more into conversion rate optimization? The only logical reason for such a disconnect is a lack of awareness about products and services that can ameliorate the problem.

What do you think?