The second annual 'Search Engine Marketing - A Buyer's Guide' has recently been published by e-consultancy. The report delivers insights into search engine marketing trends and drivers, and contains an extensive search market analysis as well as in-depth supplier profiles.According to e-consultancy, it's predicted that the UK market for Search Engine Marketing (SEM) will grow by 58% during 2007 and will be worth 2.2 billion pounds, compared to 1.41 billion pounds in 2006 (spend estimates are composed of payments to agencies and investment in client-side staff). The search market is expected remain extremely buoyant as more and more marketers recognise the benefits of paid search and SEO.
While UK paid search is expected to grow by 56%, up to 1.97 billion pounds this year, it is estimated that the total SEO marketing spend will surpass paid search in terms of spending growth, with 68% increase year-on-year and a value of over 250 million pounds - accounting for 11% of the overall UK search market. The shift of spend from paid search to SEO is mainly due to increased competition, keyword inflation and continuous concerns about PPC click fraud. With soaring competition on search engines, other changes in spending behaviour also attract attention and usability is one of the areas in which marketers are increasingly invest money.
Growth rates remain high, although not as steep as in previous years, as the market becomes more mature. Market trends and drivers for growth identified in the report include a heightened focus on organic search with SEO spend increasing at a faster rate than paid search spend for the first time.
On the other hand, marketers are seen to have gained a better understanding of the effectiveness of PPC marketing and therefore their paid search marketing approach has become more sophisticated. This trend seamlessly ties in with an overall increase in the complexity of search engine marketing and better integration with other marketing channels, which will be intensified by the emergence of new platforms offering further growth potential.
A large part of the guide contains an assessment of a total of 29 SEM agencies, as well as general tips and pitfalls when looking for an SEM supplier. Although e-consultancy does not recommend any particular supplier, all search agencies evaluated in the report represent quality. Bigmouthmedia ticks all the boxes in the search engine marketing services matrix included in the report. There are promising times ahead for the SEM industry but, with competition getting much fiercer, only the best equipped agencies will survive.
