Search Marketing InsiderPay Per Click, Social Media and SEO Strategies – An Internet Marketing Institute Publication

By Kelly Larsen, Director of Marketing PPC Summit

Advertisers continue to shine a bright light on Paid Search marketing. In fact, the Internet Advertising industry was recently named the only advertising medium that is expected to grow this year, according to Zenith Optimedia.

As more and more companies leverage the search engines and Paid Search to grow their business, it’s no surprise that Internet ad spend is expected to grow 10.1% globally this year, and Paid Search boasts an even stronger 20.0% growth projection*. Paid Search has literally stomped on the other advertising mediums, and has become the fastest growing advertising channel because it delivers more targeted traffic, greater budget control, more accountability and can generate immediate revenue–of course, when done right.

If you take a look at the Search Marketing industry advertising spend in the last 12 months, you’ll see advertisers are getting more creative with their Paid Search spending. The Marketing Sherpa chart below shows recent results for a search marketing ad spend study where nearly 70% of respondents use Google search ads, 32.6% use Google contextual ads, 27.6% use Yahoo search ads and Facebook advertising is now becoming a valid option with over 3% of advertisers now using it. The industry is now being fueled with advertising through new publishers and social sites that offer display ads on a CPM basis or Pay Per Click.

Zenith Optimedia reports the search advertising increases are attributed to Microsoft’s new Bing search engine, “…a welcome competition to Google and should spur further innovation in search.” Bing is worth watching and is surprisingly competitive with Google. The report also adds that new search technologies are reducing entry costs, providing a lot of new competition for established advertisers. The competition to attract search engine users–and your potential customers, will only get more intense. Savvy Marketers will spend their ad dollars on Search to ensure higher ROAS (Return on Advertising Spend).

Staying current on industry trends and innovations is a must in order to compete in the over maximized online advertising space. Even though there are many online resources that Internet Marketers can access (BtoB Online , MarketingProfs , Search Engine Watch , iMedia Connection , eMarketer , Marketing Experiments and Search Engine Land), many of us simply don’t have the time or resources it takes to do the necessary research.

If you don’t have enough time in the day, training may be a better option. And it can also be worth its weight in gold when you learn those little nuggets that turn under performing campaigns into profits. Whether it’s online or in-person training, justifying training costs becomes easier when it means the difference between successful or failing campaigns.

We’re getting ready for upcoming Pay Per Click Summit’s in Los Angeles and Chicago where Search Marketing’s brightest and most experienced will teach cutting-edge Search Advertising techniques that focus on how to do more with less.

We hope to see you there!

Kelly Larsen
Director of Marketing, PPC Summit

*Source: Zenith Optimedia, July  2009 Ad Spend Projections.