Google held onto its search advertising market lead during the fourth quarter with 76 percent market share while Yahoo gained 3 percent share year-over-year, according to a report from Efficient Frontier.
The search marketing firm based its report on analysis of 92 million impressions and 600 million clicks across a portion of its customers.
James Beriker
President & CEO
Efficient Frontier
“Despite the economic downturn and reports of the erosion of other marketing channels in 2008, the index of Efficient Frontier customers included in the Q4 report saw a minimal 8 percent decrease year-over-year, while the retail sector saw a 9 percent uptick in spending year-over-year, an indication of the strength of the search marketing channel,” the report said.
Google’s market share was backed by significant gains from Google Content, which experienced 63 percent growth in 2008, reflecting the companies continued focus on improving its targeting and monetization across the Ad Sense network.
Yahoo, which increased its market share by 1.9 percent in Q3, added another 0.5 percent in Q4 to finish the year with a 3 percent annual gain and total 20 percent market share. Microsoft Live Search now represents 4.2 percent of total search advertising spend for advertisers in the Efficient Frontier index.
Overall impressions for search engines are down 6 percent year-over-year. From Q4 2007 to Q4 2008, Google experienced a 3 percent decrease, while Yahoo lost 13 percent impression volume. Microsoft had 21 percent more impressions in Q4 than in Q3 2008 and gained 18 percent more impressions year-over-year.
Overall click-through-rates (CTRs) in search were relatively flat year-over-year, gaining just 2 percent. Google Search CTRs decreased by 2 percent year-over-year, while Yahoo CTRs increased 3 percent year-over-year. Google Content CTRS had a health 150 percent increase year-over-year.
“Search engine marketing remains the most accountable sales and client acquisition channel on or offline,” said James Beriker, President and CEO of Efficient Frontier.
“In fact, our spend under management grew in line with the industry, reflecting a 25 percent increase from 2007 to 2008 despite the slowing economy. To continue to achieve stellar results, the current recession has made it even more critical for search marketers to know their metrics and manage campaigns based on actionable market, sales funnel and conversion data.”
