UK Search Engine Benchmark Report 2009

UK Search Engine Marketing Benchmark Report 2009 http://econsultancy.com/reports/uk-search-engine-marketing-benchmark-report Martin Dinham Business Development Manager Guava.co.uk Email: [email_address] Website: http://www.guava.co.uk/ Linus Gregoriadis Research Director Econsultancy.com Email: [email_address] Website: http://econsultancy.com

Overview

Methodology

Findings

Demand for search services

Search budget

Objectives and effectiveness

Search engines

Search planning and issues

Questions

Methodology

Online survey in February and March 2009

Third annual UK Search Marketing Report

Includes client-side search marketers, agencies,

Almost 900 respondents

436 company search marketers

341 supplier respondents

Vast majority of respondents are UK-based

| Course Title | Demand for search services

Use of paid search services

Keyword research 70% 3%

ROI tracking and analysis 66% 7%

Automated bid management 55% 5%

Copywriting 53% n/a

Competitor research 46% 9%

Contextual advertising 44% 4%

Landing page optimisation 40% -4%

Click fraud audits 29% -2%

Growth (since 2008)

Use of SEO services

Keyword research 57% 5%

Position monitoring 55% 7%

Site technical audit 48% 7%

Link generation campaigns 47% 6%

Copywriting 46% 7%

ROI tracking and analysis 44% 4%

Search strategy definition 43% -1%

Competitor research 42% 3%

Submission process 39% -2%

Online PR optimisation 38% 8%

Landing page development 35% -5%

Social media marketing consultation 29% n/a

Growth (since 2008)

| Course Title | Search budgets

Budget allocated to search and social media

46% of companies are spending at least £10,000 on SEO (compared to 42% last year).

32% are spending at least £100,000 on paid search (compared to 28% last year).

55% of companies are spending less than £5,000 on social media marketing.

25% do not know their social media spend.

SEO Paid search Social media marketing

Annual change in budgets

SEO 55% 63%

Email 48% 39%

Social media marketing 48% 69%

Paid search (pay per click) 45% 48%

Affiliate marketing 32% 28%

Online display advertising 24% 17%

Mobile 22% 30%

Proportion of companies predicting increases in digital marketing spending Companies Agencies

The proportion of companies who are tracking paid search ROI effectively has increased from 33% last year to 45% in 2009.

For SEO, there has been an even bigger increase, from 20% to 35%.

Better measurement = greater investment

| Course Title |

Objectives and effectiveness

Tracking ROI from SEO

Clicks / visitors Number of sales

Value of sales

Leads

Position (branding)

Page impressions

Profit margin

Lifetime value

Telephone calls

No tracking

69% 47% 38% 36% 34% 29% 14% 13% 11% 9%

Change in methods for SEO tracking since 2008

Tracking ROI from paid search

Clicks / visitors Number of sales

Value of sales

Leads

Page impressions

Position (branding)

Profit margin

Lifetime value

Telephone calls

No tracking

61% 53% 43% 37% 22% 19% 21% 19% 14% 13%

Change in methods for Paid Search tracking since 2008

Effectiveness of social media campaigns

Almost half of respondents surveyed don’t know how to assess the success of their social media campaigns.

Were your organisation's social media campaigns more or less successful than you expected?

Factors impacting ROI from paid search

Higher cost of clicks 42% 57%

Credit crunch 37% 48%

Lower conversion rate 34% 47%

Less traffic (clicks) 18% 19%

Changing Google’s trademark

bidding policy 15% 20%

End of best practice funding 5% 6%

Companies Agencies

Higher cost of clicks impacting ROI most significantly

Factors affecting ROI from SEO and paid search “ Recession/credit crunch leading to less people looking to buy things.” “ We're really feeling the pressure - our budgets are getting smaller and smaller, so we are not able to outsource any of our search activities to specialist providers. Therefore, the search work isn't managed as well as it could be.” “ Cost of clicks is now approaching the cost of custom building landing pages making SEO more cost effective.” “ For SEO, difficulty tracking (our issues with tagging) and in PPC the high cost of 'generic/non-branded' terms when matched to our conversion rates.”

| Course Title | Search engines

Search engines used for paid search

85% -1%

44% -5%

30% 0%

9% 0%

4% -3%

Google is king

Yahoo has taken the biggest hit since 2008

Growth (since 2008)

Effectiveness of particular search engines “ Google is massively dominant. The others aren’t worth the effort at all for us.” “ Yahoo is cheaper but the quality is poor, whereas, Google has become more expensive with tighter competition but the quality has remained the same.” "Google is head and shoulders above the rest. Yahoo is falling behind. Live is very distant third - mainly used by people who can't figure out how to change default search engine (who are unlikely to purchase our products)." “ I have always seen Yahoo as having very high impressions and low CTR and low conversions, Microsoft as having very low impressions but high CTR and conversions, and Google being a nice middle ground.”

| Course Title | Search planning and issues

Involvement in different areas of search

Social media marketing 34% n/a

Local search 27% 7%

Shopping comparison sites 27% 3%

Vertical search 22% 6%

Mobile search 5% 0%

Pay-per-call 4% 1%

Areas companies are currently involved with:

Social media sites used for marketing

65%

49% 24%

39% 20%

38% 11%

31% 10%

31% 1%

Barriers to successful paid search

Keywords too expensive Lack of budget

Poorly converting website

Lack of internal resource

Strength of competition

Poor quality traffic

Lack of know-how

Low volume

Poor technology

Click fraud

Staff recruitment issues

47% 38% 30% 29% 28% 17% 14% 12% 6% 6% 6%

Change in barriers to successful paid search

Barriers to effective SEO

Lack of internal resource

Lack of budget

Difficult of implementation

Strength of competition

Company politics / culture

Poorly converting website

Lack of internal buy-in

Lack of know-how

Low volume

Staff recruitment issues

44% 31% 25% 24% 22% 20% 19% 19% 9% 6%

Change in barriers to effective SEO

Do you carry out SEO in-house or via agency?

Summary

Better measurement of PPC and SEO returns is leading to greater investment, as companies turn to measurable media during the recession.

Companies still get ROI from Google although marketplace is more competitive and CPCs are getting more expensive.

Marketers are in the experimental stage when it comes to social media, though large numbers now use sites such as Facebook and Twitter for marketing.

Many are struggling to measure and understand value.

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