EngineWorks

In an article published this week titled ‘Search Marketing Spending and Trends’, the online research firm eMarketer released a new snapshot of the search marketing industry taken from data provided by Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO).  In this revealing article, SEMPO makes the prediction that total spending within our vibrant industry will increase from $13.5 billion last year, to more than $14.7 billion by the end of 2009.

The following graph from this article also depicts the organization’s healthy growth projections for industry revenue through 2013:

In addition to projecting that our industry will continue to thrive in the coming years, the data from SEMPO identifies that the lion’s share of revenues (i.e., 88%) within our industry is currently generated through Paid Search Marketing, and only eleven percent (11%) comes through Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  However, both eMarketer and SEMPO predict that this ratio will swing towards SEO in the coming years due to the popularity of Natural search listings.

David Hallerman, senior analyst at eMarketer, substantiates this prediction by stating, “Internet users prefer organic listings to paid search. They generally find them more relevant—or simply more acceptable—than advertising. Therefore, they tend to click on organic results more often than on paid search ads.”

Also from this article, Mr. Hallerman states, “Marketers are realizing that even if optimization’s effects are not as obvious as paid search advertising, SEO delivers longer-term results that support any search marketing campaign.”  Here is a chart from this eMarketer article that breaks-out total search marketing spending last year by discipline:

As more and more commercial entities shift dollars away from traditional marketing channels to data-driven, ROI-based campaigns such as professional search engine marketing, we at EngineWorks are also experiencing the favorable trends that are identified in this new report from SEMPO.