Search engine marketers spent $5.75 billion on advertising in 2005, with Google and Yahoo collecting the biggest hauls of that cash. The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) will release its latest survey on US and Canadian SEM…
…The State of Search Engine Marketing 2005, on its website.
Greg Jarboe at SEMPO passed along an early copy of the study. The study cited the results of research from 553 respondents; Radar Research and Intellisurvey conducted the survey. Google and Yahoo figured prominently, as expected:
Close to every search engine marketer (95%) is advertising with Google AdWords. Almost 60% of advertisers have run campaigns on Yahoo! Search Precision Match. An equal percentage of advertisers, close to half (46%), are running campaigns with Google AdSense and Yahoo! Search Content Match. More than a third (38%) have also used Yahoo’s paid inclusion program, Yahoo! Search Site Match. MSN, a somewhat new entry into the SEM marketplace, already has close to one-third of advertisers running a campaign on its search engine.
That business benefited from the $5.75 billion spent on search marketing. SEMPO’s study expects that figure to reach $11 billion by 2010. For that investment, marketers expect to see performance results appear in their analytics; widely-cited claims of branding as the top objective don’t seem to be borne out by the study:
… less than a quarter (24%) track or measure branding impact. Rather, the overwhelming majority (80%) track increased traffic volume, three-quarter (74%) measure conversion rates, and 69% track click through rates. For the most part, advertisers are still extremely focused on immediate, demonstrable ROI rather than longer-term metrics …
Money for SEM comes at the expense of other efforts, like affiliate marketing, email marketing, yellow page, TV, direct mail, and website development, the study said. New money When it was spent on SEM, the majority of that money, 83 percent, went to paid placement; that figure made up $4.7 billion of the 2005 spending.
Future spending looks like it will drive local search revenue. The study noted that about a quarter of its respondents (mostly agencies) that have tried local search advertising think it “works great.” Only 13 percent were “not impressed.”
Google AdWords Local Targeting led the local search group, with Yahoo! Search Local Match and SuperPages.com following. 79 percent of advertisers and 83 percent of agencies among the respondents used Google for their local buys.
—
Email the author here.
Add to document.write(“Del.icio.us”) | DiggThis | Yahoo! My Web
David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
