UK Search Engine Marketing Landscape

2008

Linus Gregoriadis, Head of ResearchE-consultancy.com

Email: linus@e-consultancy.com Website: www.e-consultancy.com

Research• UK Search Engine Marketing Report

Produced in association with Guava (Q2)Annual survey of digital marketers1009 respondents, including 529 client-side

and 359 agency respondents

• Search Engine Marketing Buyer’s Guide Market valuation and trends Profiles of leading UK agencies

Overview• Search Valuation and Budgets • Search Engines • Search Activity and Search Services • Objectives and Effectiveness • Problems and Issues

Search Market Valuation and Budgets

Buoyant market• 9% of companies surveyed are spending

more than £1 million annually on PPC.• 16% of companies surveyed are spending

at least £50,000 on SEO every year.• More than 60% of companies (were)

planning to increase PPC & SEO budgets.• 31% of overall digital budget goes to

search.

UK Search Market Value – 24% growth for ‘08

Source: E-consultancy Search Engine Marketing Buyer’s Guide

But ... economic worries increase scrutiny on search ad performance

• Although the search market is growing at a healthy pace, economic concerns have started to impact the industry.

• The idea that the search industry would be “recession-immune” may need revising.

Search Engines

Some 86% of organisations surveyed are paying to appear on Google’s sponsored listings, showing that Google is maintaining its dominance of the search landscape

Google continues to dominate the industry • Google continues to attract the vast majority of advertisers’ search budgets.

• Google was ranked best for ROI, quality of traffic and for PPC management tools.

• To many marketers, this dominance raises concerns.

Which search engines do you pay to advertise on (i.e. PPC?)

Search Activity and Search Services

Search engines and marketers forced to react to changing consumer behaviour

• Search engines are constantly changing their features and services.

• New forms of content (e.g. videos and blogs) have gained greater prominence in search results.

• Mobile search marketing will grow.

iPhone statistics …

iPhone browsing sessions: • 6 times as much data

consumed compared to average mobile session.

• Are longer: 2.8 mins vs. 1.6 mins for average users.

• iPhone users 20 times more likely than mobile users to use desktop version of search engine.

Source: Australian Mobile Internet Insights study

Complexity of search marketing increases as sector matures

• Search marketing has become more complex in recent years – and more competitive.

• Gains from optimising campaigns and integrating with other marketing activities e.g. TV, display advertising.

• Search marketers have been forced to gain expertise in other activities affecting the success of campaigns e.g. usability, web analytics.

The type of services agencies offer has changed

• The most commonly offered SEO services are:

1. Keyword research (86%)

2. Competitor research (83%)

3. Landing page development (81%)

4. Copywriting (81%)

What SEO services do you offer clients?• The biggest climber since last year is copywriting which is now a

service offered by 81% of agencies compared to 69% in 2007

The type of services agencies offer has changed

• The most commonly offered PPC services are:

1. Keyword Research (82%)

2. Landing page optimisation (76%)

3. ROI tracking and analysis (74%)

4. Competitor research (70%)

What PPC services do you offer clients?• The biggest climber since last year is contextual advertising,

which is now a service offered by 53% of agencies compared to 47% in 2007

Objectives and Effectiveness

The importance of branding as a primary objective of SEO has increased significantly, jumping from 36% in 2007 to 44% in 2008.

What are your primary objectives from Search?

What is more important in terms of impact on your brand?

Problems and Issues

The rising cost of keywords prevents 38% of organisations from being more successful at Paid Search marketing.

The biggest barrier to successful SEO is lack of resource.

Are rising CPC costs significantly impacting ROI from Paid Search?

Paid search problems

• The most commonly cited barriers to Paid Search success are:

1. Keywords too expensive (38%)

2. Lack of internal resource (36%)

3. Lack of budget (34%)

4. Poorly converting website (29%)

SEO problems

• The most commonly cited barriers to SEO success are:

1. Lack of internal resource (45%)

2. Difficulty of implementation (33%)

3. Lack of budget (27%)

4. Lack of know-how (25%)

Questions?

Linus Gregoriadis, Head of ResearchE-consultancy.com

Email: linus@e-consultancy.com Website: www.e-consultancy.com