Last year, North American companies racked up approximately $9.45 billion in search marketing spending, according to a new report issued by SEMPO. As in prior years, the greatest bulk of that spending was aimed at paid search advertising while organic search marketing efforts made up just a little more than one tenth of total spending.

MediaPost Publications reports:

Spending on organic search engine optimization--or configuring Web sites to make it more likely that they appear high in the results pages for certain terms--accounted for just $1.1 billion, or 12% of search marketing spending, according to SEMPO. Despite the lower spending levels on search engine optimization, 76% of advertisers said they used such techniques, compared to 71% who purchased search ads.

Where do marketers buy search ads? Virtually all (96%) use Google AdWords, while 86% have purchased pay-per-click ads on Yahoo and 68% bought search ads on MSN last year.

Budgets were primarily shifted from print magazines, direct mail and web site development.






About the Author

Jennifer Laycock is the Editor of Search Engine Guide, an educational web site aimed at translating the search marketing world into something that small business owners can understand. Jennifer specializes in common sense search engine marketing, viral marketing and customer outreach via social media and blogs. A former search marketing consultant and in-house trainer, Jennifer’s clients have included companies like Verizon, American Greetings and Highlights for Children. Her primary clients now are a little girl named Elnora and a little boy named Emmitt.

Jennifer Laycock is the Editor of Search Engine Guide, an educational web site aimed at translating the search marketing world into something that small business owners can understand. Jennifer specializes in common sense search engine marketing, viral marketing and customer outreach via social media and blogs. A former search marketing consultant and in-house trainer, Jennifer’s clients have included companies like Verizon, American Greetings and Highlights for Children. Her primary clients now are a little girl named Elnora and a little boy named Emmitt.