Search Engine Marketing Costs Drop by 20-31 Percent
By Anna Johnson on August 3rd, 2009Research by Efficient Frontier has found that cost per clicks (CPCs) have dropped by 20 to 31 percent year on year across the major search engines, allowing advertisers to capture more volume at lower cost.
Efficient Frontier’s finding is based on its Customer Index – a subset of Efficient Frontier clients who have search engine marketing (SEM) spend data for six consecutive quarters or more, covering over 6.5 billion impressions and 99 million clicks.
The company found that the average CPC on Google has fallen by 31 percent, followed by Bing and Yahoo! with 30 percent and 20 percent respectively.
Efficient Frontier advertisers evidently made the most of the price falls by capturing greater click volume. This saw advertisers roughly maintaining the return on investment (ROI) levels of prior quarters. ROIs for these advertisers were fractionally better – 2 percent higher – than last year.
“We are seeing advertisers make their search marketing budgets work harder than ever before,” said Jonathan Beeston, Client Services Director for Europe.
Meanwhile, Efficient Frontier has also found that its sample of advertisers spent 11 percent less on search engine marketing when compared to the same period last year. April saw the biggest drop in search engine spending, after which levels of investment recovered, indicating renewed optimism among advertisers.
