A flurry of paid-search reports released Tuesday may have marketers’ heads spinning, but each provides insights into specific parts of the process.

SearchIgnite released the Q2 2010 U.S. Search Market Report Tuesday. Year-over-year paid-search spend increased 14% in the U.S., following an 11% YoY increase, sequentially.

Similar to Efficient Frontier’s report, SearchIgnite found retailers spent more — about 7% — compared with the prior year. Microsoft’s search engine Bing gained market share by 26% from the year-ago quarter, but declined 9.6% sequentially. Overall, Bing dropped slightly to 6.2% share of search spend in the U.S., while Google and Yahoo reached 78.4% and 15.4%, respectively.

Google increased the average number of paid-search ads shown per search session by 15%, followed by Yahoo at 22% and Bing at 11%. More premium ads in sponsored listings and down the right rail don’t necessarily suggest good news, however. Increasing ad coverage can diminish returns, and result in a poor experience for consumers, according to the report.

Relying on Google for metrics, the report suggests that consumers can withstand between 5.5 and 6.0 ads per search query. Yahoo now serves up 6.85, making it unlikely the increase in ads will lead to additional revenue. Bing serves up about 3.85 ads per keyword, so it’s “extremely” likely that this will reflect in better-than-expected revenues for the search engine. Similarly, Google went from 4.97 to 5.72, so they could report healthy increases as well.

Google now monetizes nearly 8% more of their keyword searches. Stokes says keywords searched with no ads decreased from 43.6% in Q1 to 39.7% in June, making the inventory easier to monetize.

In the Americas, paid-search spending by tech companies increased 12% during the second quarter, while the Asia/Pacific region rose 33%, sequentially. Combined, spending in Europe, the Middle East and Africa grew 25%. Google’s China strategy and move to serve content from Hong Kong has influenced performance. During the second quarter, Google’s share in the region dropped from 69% to 61%, while Baidu’s share of paid-search spending rose to 22% from 12%, sequentially. Read more at www.mediapost.com

Google Slips, AOL Gains in Customer Satisfaction

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After coming back strong in Q1, US paid search spending continued to regain strength as 2010 went on.

According to SearchIgnite, year-over-year paid search spending was up 14% in Q2, compared with a gain of 11% in Q1. Spending was down slightly, by 2%, quarter-to-quarter—considered a normal part of the summer slowdown in marketing activity.

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Companies in retail, travel and auto industries dug into budgets during the second quarter in 2010 to spend 24% more on paid-search ads overall, compared with the prior year, and 9.7% sequentially, according to the Efficient Frontier Q2 2010 Executive Summary released Tuesday.

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Yahoo, Microsoft Make Slight Gains Google Sites led the US core search market in June with 62.6% of the searches conducted (down 1.1 percentage points from May), followed by Yahoo Sites (up 0.6 percentage points to 18.9%), and Microsoft Sites (up 0.6 percentage points to 12.7%).

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CHART OF THE DAY: Microsoft’s Head Of Sales Blames Facebook For Low Online Ad Prices

Social networks, with their massive inventory of page views, have much lower ad rates on a cost per thousand impressions (CPM) basis than the Internet at large. ComScore reports that Facebook and MySpace only get a $0.56 CPM on average, while the Internet at large gets $2.43.

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New Chart: The Allocation of SEO Budgets

SUMMARY: How are small, medium and large organizations allocating SEO budgets differently? In this week’s chart, you’ll learn what portion of SEO budgets various SEO expenses are taking for small, medium and large organizations, in regards to staff salaries, agency expenses, analytics programs and purchasing inbound links.

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Top Search Engines by Share of Visits April vs. May 2010

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Very Effective SEO Objectives by Primary Market

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CHART OF THE DAY: Mobile Search Is Exploding, But Ad Revenue Is Tiny

According to RBC Capital, mobile searches will quadruple in the next three years. During that same period, desktop searches will continue to increase, suggesting mobile searches will not cannibalize desktop searches.

The bad news: Despite the growth in mobile search, the ad market will remain rather small for Google. RBC estimates the mobile search ad market will only reach $2-$3 billion in the next few years.

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CHART OF THE DAY: Hey Google, Better Figure Out Another Business (Other Than Search)

Google’s stock has taken a beating this year, falling more than 20% since January.

There’s a bunch of small reasons for Google’s stock to be dinged, including the failure of the Nexus One, pulling out of China, and the weaker Euro posing some problems.

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Core Searches Grow 3%

Core Search Trends Similar to April Core search results from May 2010 show the same basic trends observed in April 2010. Google Sites led the US core search market in May with 63.7% of the searches conducted, down 0.7 percentage points from 64.4% in April. Meanwhile, Yahoo Sites maintained the number two spot with 18.3% of all core searches, up 0.6 percentage points from 17.7% from the previous month. Microsoft sites remained in third place with 12.1% of all core searches, a 0.3 percentage point boost from 11.8% in April. Read more at www.marketingcharts.com

27.0% report more than 50% of their online sales are attributable to search engine marketing: Percent of Online Sales Attributable to Search Engine Marketing   % by Type of Retailer Percent of Sales All Chain Catalog Web  Manufacturer 5% or less 17.0% 16.7 27.3 16.2 11.1 6-10 9.0 25.0 0.0 8.8 0.0 11-15 11.0 16.7 9.1 10.3 11.1 16-20 7.0 8.3 0.0 7.4 11.1 21-25 9.0 8.3 9.1 8.8 11.1 26-30 8.0 0.0 36.4 2.9 22.2 31-40 9.0 8.3 9.1 8.8 11.1 41-50 3.0 8.3 0.0 2.9 0.0 > 50% 27.0 8.3 9.1 33.8 22.2 Source: Internet Retailer, May 2010 Google dominates the search engine landscape. Yahoo has been the perennial second-place finisher. Bing, has been making inroads since its launch in June 2009, and gaining increasing attention from retail marketers. 19.4% of respondents to the Internet Retailer survey say more than 90% of their search engine traffic comes from Google: ·      43.9% say 71% to 90%, ·      25.5% report 50% to 70% ·      11.2% report less than 50% Read more at www.mediapost.com

According to Internet Retailer’s recent search engine marketing survey of 102 web-only retailers, chain retailers, catalogers and consumer brand manufacturers, 28.0% of merchants report more than 25% of their site traffic stems from paid search advertisements, while 51.5% say more than a quarter of their traffic comes from natural search. Search engine marketing is one of Internet retailing’s fundamentals, says the report. Web merchants keep pouring money into advertising on search results pages and on search engine optimization projects to move up in natural search results.

In the past year: ·      44.9% of merchants report that the conversion rate on pay-per-click search advertising went up ·      16.3% say it went down ·      38.8% say their conversion rate held steady ·      47% report more than 25% of their web sales stem from search engine marketing ·      44.6% increased their paid search budgets ·      49% say they will increase it in the year ahead Shar VanBoskirk, Vice President and principal analyst at Forrester Research, says “Everything we see from the retail side indicates… considerable interest and investment in search related to… driving more online sales.” 37.7% of respondents spent more than 50% of their online marketing budget, 11.9% spent 61% to 75%, and 20.8% spent more than 75%, according to the Internet Retailer survey of IRNewsLink e-newsletter readers conducted with e-mail marketing and survey firm Vovici Corp. Read more at www.mediapost.com

How many consumers know or care about real-time search? A study released this week from RTS engine Wowd indicates some ignorance: 52% had never heard of real-time search before taking the survey. Perhaps it’s time the search industry steps up to the plate.

In the Wowd study of 1,011 U.S. participants, 55% women and 45% men, 84% of respondents said they wanted one Web site where they could easily discover the latest news, trends and topics as they happen. These Web sites exist. Not only Wowd offers this information, but OneRiot, Google and Twitter. Reliable SEO founder David Harry points to Collecta, Crowdeye, as well as social sites and feeds like FriendFeed, Facebook, Stumble, and Delicious.

Meanwhile, only 55% of respondents thought results found through traditional search engines contained the latest information and content from the Web, compared with 16% who said no, and 29% who weren’t sure. Maybe these numbers reflect feedback from consumers that RTS engines need to step up the marketing message in SEO and paid search ads.

When asked about the biggest problem with Internet search results, 35% said search engine query results are not accurate enough; 26% said too much spam; followed by “old data” at nearly 22%. There was a group who was satisfied: the 14% that said “nothing — search works great.” And almost 3% indicated “other.” Read more at www.mediapost.com

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SUMMARY: Keyword research should be the foundation of any search engine marketing campaign, but what is the best way to go about researching and defining your target key terms? This week’s chart will show you the most highly rated keyword research tactics, so you can start researching with greater efficiency.

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Dotomi announced results from the use of its attribution technology which reiterates the impact strong attribution models can have in driving display or any digital media’s future growth. From the release: “Dotomi found display increased performance by an average of 20 percent in paid search, 26 percent in natural search, 25 percent in affiliate marketing, 16 percent in CRM email and 26 percent in direct load, where the consumer goes directly to the retailer’s website.” Pour on the attribution for display, and it’s full steam ahead! Read the release. Read more at www.adexchanger.com