TL;DR: Australian businesses that maintained marketing spend through COVID captured market share their competitors are still trying to recover. Analysis across five sectors, essential trades, aviation, professional services, e-commerce and construction, shows the same pattern regardless of whether the sector grew or contracted. What separated the businesses that came out ahead was not what industry they were in, but whether they stayed visible while their competitors went dark. This piece walks through the sector-by-sector data and what it points to for businesses facing the current period of Australian economic disruption.
The historical record on marketing through economic disruption is consistent enough that it should not be a debate anymore. Businesses that maintained or increased marketing spend through recessions have outperformed those that cut, in every major downturn studied since the 1980s. COVID was the most recent case, and Australia produced a particularly clean dataset because the shock hit every sector simultaneously with the same conditions. The research we’ve synthesised for this piece pulls from Australian primary sources across five sectors that map to how established businesses operate: trades, aviation, professional services, e-commerce and construction.
The pattern held across all five, and it held in both directions. Sectors that boomed and sectors that collapsed produced the same lesson about visibility, positioning and the cost of going quiet. It also maps closely to how we think about trust as the real growth constraint in the current environment.
The historical pattern before we look at COVID
The McGraw-Hill Research study of 600 companies through the 1981–82 US recession found that businesses maintaining or increasing advertising spend during the recession averaged 256% higher sales by 1985 than those that cut. The Analytic Partners analysis of hundreds of billions in marketing spend through the 2008 Global Financial Crisis found brands that increased paid advertising saw a 17% rise in incremental sales, while those that cut spending risked losing 15% of business to competitors. The mechanism is simple economics. When businesses stop advertising, the cost of reaching an audience drops because fewer competitors are bidding for the same attention. The businesses still showing up own the conversation by default. Search auction pricing falls, media rates soften, and trust signals from continued visibility compound. Every dollar spent through the contraction is worth more than the same dollar spent during peacetime. COVID did not break this pattern. It confirmed it, at a speed and scale most people had not seen before.
Essential trades, the sector that compounded
The trades came through COVID as one of the strongest performing sectors in Australia. Google Trends data across 2020 showed outdoor structures (pergolas, decks, pools) grew roughly 85%, landscaping around 45%, electrical services around 38%, plumbing 25% and HVAC 22% as homeowners redirected travel and hospitality budgets into their properties. Plumbers were reported to have earned around 25% above average during the period. The structural reason trades did well is that they operate on short job cycles with pricing flexibility. When input costs moved, they moved with them. Fixed-price contract exposure was minimal compared to the builders whose collapses filled the news two years later.
The trades that grew fastest were the ones that already had digital presence in place when demand shifted. Google search volume for electricians in Australia continues to sit at scale, and the businesses appearing in local pack results captured demand that competitors without digital visibility could not find fast enough. A trade business in 2020 could pick up work by phone if they were already the local name that came up. If they weren’t, the customer went to whoever was. The current picture matters too. Jobs and Skills Australia’s 2025 Occupation Shortage List shows nearly half of trade occupations remain in national shortage. The businesses building digital presence now are the ones with full books when the next tightening comes. Established trades running Google Ads and SEO through disruption are compounding two advantages at once: demand capture in real time, and search authority that gets harder to displace with every quarter it holds.
Aviation, the sector where the framework matters most
Australian aviation was one of the hardest-hit sectors of any economy during COVID. Domestic revenue collapse and international grounding pushed the industry to close to zero operational capacity for months. Small charter operators, MRO businesses and specialist aviation services faced a decision most other sectors did not: whether to spend at all when the runway was empty. The operators that kept marketing spend running through the grounding period found themselves with two structural advantages when demand returned. First, search competition had evaporated. Cost per click on high-intent aviation keywords dropped materially, so every dollar spent captured more visibility than the same dollar would have pre-COVID. Second, the operators that stayed visible built the entity signals that determined who buyers found when the market restarted. The same principle applies now to ChatGPT Ads and other AI-driven channels. The businesses building entity recognition and citation patterns now will be the ones AI systems recommend when the current disruption resolves, and the cost of that entity building is materially lower today than it will be in twelve months.
The pattern is counter-intuitive and consistent with the McGraw-Hill and Analytic Partners findings. Cutting marketing during a demand freeze feels like the responsible move. What it actually does is hand your search position, your brand recall, and your relative visibility to whichever competitor decided to stay in market. When demand returns, and it always returns, the operator that kept the lights on is the one that shows up first. Australian aviation businesses that came through COVID stronger did not do it by predicting the recovery. They did it by refusing to be invisible while it was uncertain.
Professional services, the sector search actually helped
Professional services was one of the most instructive sectors of the entire COVID period. The QuickFee Australia COVID Impact Report found that 73.5% of accounting and law firms saw an increase in demand for their services during the pandemic. Small law firms in particular grew revenue through 2020, with technology adoption cited as the primary enabler. Practice areas moved in different directions. Insolvency work grew sharply. Tax and advisory demand surged through JobKeeper administration and the associated compliance workload. Employment law saw litigation increases as workforce arrangements shifted. Commercial law held steady, while M&A and immigration contracted significantly.
The pattern inside professional services was the same one that showed up elsewhere: firms that had specific, clear digital positioning around the exact practice area buyers were searching for captured a disproportionate share of the surge. Firms that relied solely on referrals found their networks disrupted by the same uncertainty affecting everyone else. Referrals slow when the people who make them are distracted by their own crises. Search does not slow. Search accelerates. Someone in a small business dealing with an insolvency question at 11pm on a Tuesday is going to Google, not to their network. The professional services firms that captured this were not necessarily the biggest or best-known. They were the ones ranking for the queries that mattered when the search happened.
E-commerce, the sector where the window was measured in weeks
Australia Post’s 2021 Inside Australian Online Shopping report showed that Australians spent $50.5 billion online in 2020, up 57% year on year. E-commerce grew to represent 16.3% of total retail spend. More than 1.3 million households were first-time online shoppers, with 93% of their initial purchases occurring between March and December 2020. Victoria led state-level growth at 82% year on year given its extended lockdowns. The businesses that captured this surge were the ones with the infrastructure already in place before it hit. Product feeds, remarketing audiences, campaign structures, tracking and analytics setups that took months to build in normal conditions could not be assembled in real time as the wave hit. The retailers that tried to build e-commerce capability during the surge missed the sharpest part of the demand spike. By the time platforms were live and paid campaigns were properly configured, first-time online shoppers had already found the businesses that were ready for them.
The compounding effect from that period is still visible today. Retailers that established search position and remarketing audiences through 2020 have spent the last five years compounding on that foundation. Competitors trying to build the same equity now are doing it in a more expensive, more saturated market. Digital presence built during a demand spike is worth multiples of digital presence built after one. The e-commerce lesson generalises. When search behaviour shifts fast, businesses positioned before the shift capture disproportionate value, and businesses reacting to the shift arrive too late.
Construction, the cautionary tale
Construction is the sector where the marketing-through-disruption lesson is most easily misread. On paper, the industry boomed. The Australian Government’s HomeBuilder program attracted roughly 121,000 applications against a Treasury forecast of 27,000, more than four times what was expected. Dwelling approvals surged 27.2% nationally, with Victoria up 45.7%. Demand was everywhere. The cost side moved in the opposite direction. Timber prices rose 50 to 100%, steel rose approximately 42%, and the CoreLogic Construction Cost Index hit an all-time annual increase of 11.9% in December 2022. Builders who signed fixed-price contracts in 2020 were delivering them at 2023 costs. The result was one of the most concentrated industry collapses in recent Australian history. ASIC data shows approximately 2,832 construction firms entered insolvency in FY 2023–24 alone, representing around 27% of all Australian company failures, an unprecedented share for a single industry. High-profile collapses included Probuild, Clough Group and Porter Davis Homes.
The builders that survived did two things. They moved on contract structure before the pressure became critical, and they maintained the lead flow that gave them leverage to choose work on their terms. The builders with strong digital presence could afford to be selective about which contracts they signed and which they walked away from, while the builders scrambling for any work signed the fixed-price contracts that killed them. Construction is where the lesson runs both ways. Demand does not save a business if the underlying economics move against it. What saves the business is the ability to keep choosing, and the ability to keep choosing comes from having enough demand in the pipeline to say no to the wrong deals.
What the pattern across all five sectors shows
Five sectors, different starting positions, different demand curves, same outcome. The businesses that came out of COVID stronger were positioned before the disruption hit. Their marketing was already running, their search presence was already built, and their infrastructure was already assembled. When demand shifted, they captured it. When demand collapsed, they held share. When demand returned, they were the ones already visible.
The businesses that came out of COVID weaker were the ones that made the natural, intuitive decision to cut when revenue got uncertain. They restarted their marketing in 2022 and spent the next two years trying to rebuild pipeline and search position that their active competitors had spent that same time compounding. The gap does not close quickly. In some sectors it has not closed yet.
At JBE Digital we think about established businesses through the Trust-Led Growth Engine, a four-stage frame of Formation, Distribution, Evaluation and Capture. The businesses that navigated COVID well had the engine already built. Their proof was documented, their distribution channels were active, their evaluation surface (reviews, case studies, positioning) was in place, and their capture mechanics (offers, funnels, sales process) were working.
Disruption did not destroy them because the system was already running. The businesses that suffered most were the ones treating marketing as a discretionary line item to be cut when things got hard. That framing is the mistake. Marketing during disruption is not a cost. It is the compounding asset that determines what the business looks like on the other side.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which Australian industries performed best during COVID?
E-commerce, essential trades, healthcare, and professional services (particularly insolvency, tax and employment law) were among the strongest performers. Australia Post data shows online retail grew 57% in 2020 to $50.5 billion. QuickFee Australia found 73.5% of accounting and law firms saw increased demand. Trades demand growth ranged from 22% (HVAC) to 85% (outdoor structures) depending on the trade type.
What happened to Australian businesses that cut marketing during COVID?
They lost search position, brand recall and relative visibility to competitors who kept spending. When demand returned in 2021–22, they spent two years trying to rebuild what active competitors had spent the same period compounding. Historical research from McGraw-Hill and Analytic Partners across multiple recessions shows the same pattern: businesses that cut through downturns underperform those that maintained spend for years afterward.
Why did some construction companies collapse despite the COVID housing boom?
Demand surged, but input costs moved even faster. Timber rose 50 to 100% and steel around 42% between 2020 and 2022, while builders were locked into fixed-price contracts signed at 2020 prices. Approximately 2,832 construction firms entered insolvency in FY 2023–24 (ASIC data), representing about 27% of all Australian company failures. The builders that survived shifted contract structures early and maintained lead flow that let them choose which work to sign.
Is the current Australian economic climate comparable to COVID?
The specific causes are different (cost pressure, inflation, consumer confidence rather than a health shock), but the shape is similar enough that the pattern applies. Businesses face the same core decision: maintain visibility or cut spend and hope. The historical data across every recession studied since the 1980s points in the same direction.
What should established Australian businesses do now?
Audit visibility across search, AI results and directories. Protect active marketing channels rather than defaulting to cuts. Watch for competitor gaps and take the space they vacate. Think in 18-month timeframes rather than quarterly reactions. The businesses that navigate this period well will be the ones treating marketing as an asset that compounds, not a cost that can be paused.
How does AI search change the marketing-through-disruption calculus?
It makes staying visible more important, not less. AI systems build entity recognition and citation patterns over time. Businesses that stop publishing, stop being mentioned, and stop appearing in third-party sources lose ground in AI recommendations in ways that are hard to recover. The AI SEO equivalent of holding search position through a downturn is holding entity presence, and the businesses doing this now are building durable advantage as AI-driven search matures.
The Strategic Implication
Every recession studied since the 1980s produces the same conclusion. Every industry we’ve analysed through COVID produces the same conclusion. The businesses that maintain visibility through disruption compound advantage. The businesses that pause hand share to competitors and spend years trying to recover it. Australia is in the middle of another period of economic disruption. Cost pressure is real. Consumer confidence is below neutral. The instinct to cut marketing feels prudent, and it is the same instinct that has cost businesses share in every downturn on record. The businesses that come through this period stronger will be the ones that made the counter-intuitive call. They will keep spending when their competitors go quiet, they will build search and AI presence at a lower cost of acquisition than has been available in years, and they will exit the disruption with a pipeline their competitors are still rebuilding.
The businesses that get this wrong will spend late 2027 and 2028 doing what businesses that cut through COVID are still doing now: catching up. The trust loop in paid media is the same loop that runs through every marketing channel. It compounds for the businesses that keep running it and unwinds for the ones that stop.
