Consumer electronics companies led the way in paid search marketing increases experienced in the fourth quarter of 2011, as the organizations dedicated 28 percent more to PPC, according to a report from Covario.
The holiday shopping season is a traditionally a strong sales period for these businesses, so growth in supporting PPC campaigns was not unexpected. However, Covario believes this sharp jump, which exceeded its expectations of a 15 to 20 percent increase, demonstrates improved confidence from both businesses and their customers.
With more companies using search marketing, Covario believes businesses in all industries will adjust plans for 2012 to target search engines more aggressively, and increased paid search marketing efforts seem to be mirrored by a growing investment in organic search marketing. Brafton reported recently that technology companies in both B2C and B2B markets will increase their content marketing efforts heavily in 2012 to boost unpaid search.
In terms of the paid search marketing, Google saw the most investment with 76 percent of spending. Bing and Yahoo fell by 18 percent compared to 2010, according to Covario.
Focusing more on Google makes sense for businesses as consumers clearly favor the search giant when conducting queries. Most recently, Brafton reported that Google maintained its two-thirds share of the market in 2011, while Bing and Yahoo finished second and third with roughly 30 percent combined.
