U.S. Search Ad Spend: Growing or Slowing?
By Anna Johnson on February 11th, 2009As you might expect (given lies, damned lies and statistics), research firms are sending mixed messages about the state of search advertising expenditure.
On the one hand, eMarketer reports that Google and Yahoo have reported year-over-year increases in their search revenues for the quarter ended December 31, 2008 (Google by 17 percent and Yahoo by 18 percent).
On the other hand, search marketing firm Efficient Frontier says that search spending declined by 8 percent year-over-year in the final quarter of 2008.
eMarketer puts the difference down to the kinds of companies Efficient Frontier monitors: its client base includes companies in the financial services, travel and entertainment, retail, and automotive sectors which have all been particularly vulnerable during the recession.
Meanwhile, eMarketer expects U.S. search advertising to grow by 14.9 percent in 2009 to reach $12.3 billion – lower than the growth rate of 21.4 percent in 2008.
Source: eMarketer, “US Search Ad Spending Falters?” eMarketer, February 6, 2009
