Paid Search Most Popular Form Of Online Marketing And Set To Grow

The average business devotes nearly a quarter of online marketing budgets to paid search – or Pay Per Click advertising – and the figure is set to grow in 2014.

According to the UK Search Engine Marketing Benchmark Report, which questioned businesses about the allocation of budget to online forms of advertising, paid search is the most significant form used by the average business, taking an approximate 24% of the total budget. While some analysts are concerned that businesses were focusing on paid search at the expense of long-term investment in SEO, it is clear this is not necessarily the case.  SEO followed closely behind with a total spend of 18% in the average business budget.

It is significant that nearly half of all online marketing budgets are dedicated to the dual strategy of SEO and paid search.   The two strategies together make up a large portion of total conversions to sales.  Even though 80% of all search clicks are still on organic search results, nearly half of all sales clicks come from paid advertisements. This means people search for information about what they want with organic search results (SEO) and buy the actual product they want from companies they know have paid to advertise it (paid search).

Businesses can’t afford to be without both forms of advertising.  Additionally, this reliance on both forms of online advertising to bring a client to the end of the sale funnel and pay for products or services means that approaches need to be coordinated.  There’s no point investing in a top notch SEO strategy for people searching for ‘DSL cameras’ when there is not also a paid search feature for the current specials on various product types.  The key to success in online marketing is a coordinated, multi-prong approach.

Even though the online marketing buzz has focused on social media the past few years, the majority of marketers are planning to focus more on paid search in 2014.  55% of respondents confirmed they would be increasing their focus on paid search in the year to come with only 51% doing the same for their social media strategies.

On the other end of the spectrum, CEOs are making moves away from display advertising, with 17% confirming they would decrease their budgets in this area in the years to come.   This may be because 77% of display advertisements are never even seen.  The ‘pay per view’ model of display advertising means results are harder to measure and less concrete when compared to paid search.

Pay Per Click advertising, or paid search, involves the advertiser paying a platform for every click an advertisement receives.  The best platforms can target users that will be likely to be interested in the advertisement by utilising information they know about the user.  The most notable paid search platforms are Google Adwords and Facebook.   To begin your paid search strategy, contact Complete Cloud today.