Search Engine Marketing Gaining in Popularity, Survey Shows
A new study, conducted by Covario, reports that search engine marketing increased by 16 percent over the third and fourth quarters of 2009. Some of its more interesting findings include that Microsoft's Bing more than doubled its share in the U.S. market, which may have come at the expense of Google. The technology giant pulled in 72 percent of the U.S. market last year, which would be impressive were it not Google's lowest performance in three years.
Craig Macdonald, senior vice-president of products for Covario, found the rate of expansion during the latter half of 2009 to be "surprising," noting that companies are spending 12% percent more than last year on paid search marketing. A recent study by WebVisible found that small and medium-sized business are increasingly using search engine marketing as an advertising strategy. Companies directed an average of $1,658 of their budged towards search engine marketing in the third quarter of 2009.
