Henry Blodget, who is pretty damn smart, thinks that the mortgage mess will impact online ad spend. Worth a read.
I believe that the mortgage lenders will advertise less. But I think that means that they put their marketing dollars into buying leads. This means the lead generators advertise more. Since lead generators are too smart to buy anything but the ads that generate the highest blended ROI, this will cause a hit to the PPC media (either a drop in the CPC or a drop in volume, or both) and to the overpriced CPM media. It almost certainly means a pickup in email marketing.
Time to upgrade the spam shield, unless you’re looking for a mortgage.