14 DAY TRIAL // A new report from research firm Efficient Frontier shows that spending on search engine marketing may have reached its low point and has stabilized even though the overall economic environment is still weak. The report also shows that Microsoft's new search engine Bing may have been a financial success for the company, with paid click share up 5 percent in the last month in the US.
“Search has always been a microcosm of the overall economy and our U.S. Search Engine Performance Report has become the go to source for market analysis and trend spotting,” said David Karnstedt, president and CEO, Efficient Frontier. “The second quarter report indicates that the search marketing sector may have bottomed out as spending stabilized, which is good news for the industry. Additionally, with the launch of Bing and its early signs of promise, the battle between search titans is once again heating up.”
The report, U.S. Search Engine Performance Report: Q2 2009, shows search engine marketing (SEM) spending bottoming out after a number of declining quarters. On the whole spending was down 21 percent in the second quarter of 2009 year over year. The decline was only 3 percent from the last quarter, this after a greater 23 percent year over year drop in the first quarter, showing a slower decline rate.
Paid click share followed the trend set by previous quarters, with Microsoft's Bing seeing the biggest increase, cutting in mostly on Yahoo's market share. Google saw a small decline in spending share while Yahoo and mostly Bing saw an increase to compensate. Bing's launch was beneficial for Microsoft, even if the company had seen an increase click share in previous months it wasn't until the new engine came out that a significant increase was seen with click share rising 5 percent from May 2009. The biggest increases were in the financial sector, with 17 percent, and the travel sector, a recognized strong point for Bing, with 10 percent.