Internet Marketers Spend Eight Times More On Paid Search Than SEO
By Anna Johnson on April 1st, 2009Research by Radar Research, revealed by the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), shows that in 2008 North American Internet marketers spent eight times more on paid search marketing than search engine optimization (SEO).
Radar Research’s data shows that Internet marketers – from small businesses to corporate marketers – spent $13.5 billion on search marketing last year. A massive 88.4 percent of this was devoted to paid search, with 10.6 percent going to SEO and the remaining 1 percent to search engine marketing technology.
According to eMarketer, the ratio of paid search to SEO will change in the future, as Internet marketers invest more in search engine optimization.
I’m not surprised at the current ratio.
Paid search is more accessible to corporate marketing departments (the biggest advertising spenders) than SEO. This is basically because paid search is somewhat familiar as a form of advertising… whereas SEO is a drastically different art and science (which makes it harder to sell to corporate superiors).
So while the ratio of paid search to SEO may well change, I think paid search will continue receiving the biggest portion of corporate marketers’ search budgets.
For one thing, by its very nature, paid search requires money. For another, SEO is unlikely to get any easier for corporate marketers or (Internet marketers in general) to do… making it as difficult as ever to advocate to heads of marketing departments.
Source: eMarketer, “Search Marketing Spending and Trends,” eMarketer, March 30, 2009
