Despite the buzz around video and mobile search, US search engine marketers are not ready to put their money where their mouths are for the still-untested platforms. Around 40 per cent of online marketers told a Search Engine Marketing Professional Organisation (Sempo) survey that they would not pay more for video search than they do for traditional pay-per-click (PPC) search.
A highly value-conscious 13 per cent said that they would like to see the cost of traditional PPC searches fall before they paid a premium for video.
Of the balance who said that they would pay more for video search, most said that they would not pay any more than 20 per cent above what they pay for text-based PPC.
According to Sempo, the poll findings echo industry feedback saying that most marketers expected costs to plateau.
"These numbers make sense," said Kevin Lee, member of the board of directors of Sempo and chair of its research committee.
"They show that the search engine marketing industry has become more sophisticated, and thus keyword efficiency is at an all-time high."
He went on to compare mobile and video search to the early years of cable and PPC which struggled with initial low-faith before becoming essential mediums.
The report also found that search engine marketing grew 62 per cent between 2005 and 2006 to a total $9.4 billion (£4.9 billion) and that most marketers expected this to double by 2011.
