The majority of businesses in the UK are set to up their digital marketing spend next year according to new research.

Data compiled by Econsultancy from a survey of 500 client-side digital marketers and agencies reveals 52 per cent of companies plan to increase their paid search (PPC) budgets next year, up from 45 per cent.

The proportion of companies looking to increase their search engine optimisation (SEO) budget over the same period has increased by 10 per cent, to hit a total of 60 per cent.

According to the report, almost half of all companies (49 per cent) are now spending at least £50,000 on PPC in a year – an increase from 39 per cent in 2008. In addition, the number of firms spending less than £5,000 has decreased significantly from 25 per cent last year to 14 per cent this year.

When it comes to SEO, the report said 22 per cent of firms are now investing at least £50,000 – up from 16 per cent in 2008.

Spending on social media ventures is still small in comparison, with 57 per cent of companies putting aside less than £5,000-a-year.

However, it seems the potential benefits of implementing a sound social media strategy are starting to become clear to business owners, with 65 per cent looking to increase spend during the next 12 months. Out of those companies, 15 per cent plan to double their budget.

In terms of potential stumbling blocks with regard to PPC spending, 41 per cent of companies cited a lack of internal resources while 30 per cent pointed to poorly converting websites. In terms of SEO, companies highlighted a lack of internal resources (49 per cent) followed by budget problems (26 per cent).

By Richard Morris

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Global energy firm BP is using Google AdWords in an effort to help stem the tide of bad publicity that has washed up on its shore following the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.

According to news agency AFP, the company has already spent $1.25bn on containing the spill, which occurred following an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform in April.

And as well as trying to minimise damage to the environment, the company is also attempting to minimise further damage to its reputation with a PPC campaign.

BP has bid on keywords including ‘BP oil spill’, ‘BP oil spill lawsuit’ and ‘BP suit’. All searches bring up a sponsored listing on Google which links through to the company’s page detailing its response to the disaster.

“Info about the Gulf of Mexico Leak. Learn more about how BP is helping,” say the adverts.

Speaking to ABC News, a BP spokesperson, said: “We have bought search terms on search engines like Google to make it easier for people to find out more about our efforts in the Gulf and make it easier for people to find key links to information on filing claims, reporting oil on the beach and signing up to volunteer.”

Commenting on the move, the chief executive of one US marketing firm, said: “…they’re getting so much bad press that directing traffic to their own site is a great PR strategy”.

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Almost five per cent of all internet searches performed in the UK last week related to the upcoming football World Cup in South Africa.

Data from online research firm Hitwise found that 4.98 per cent of searches conducted in the week ending May 29 contained the words ‘world cup’.

According to the company, searches for ‘World Cup 2010 dates’ began to increase in volume at the start of April, and the momentum has continued.

In terms of PPC, Hitwise said eBay an Amazon in the UK have been using paid search advertising to bring in traffic from searches relating to variations of the term ‘Panini world cup 2010′. Both companies have been attempting to boost sales by linking to stock from the famous sticker manufacturer, but it seems Panini’s own homepage has benefitted the most.

Hitwise data shows a 267 per cent increase in traffic to the company’s website between March 13 and May 29, with the majority of visits coming from households containing families.

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Google can expect to see a rise in paid search advertising revenues from China, despite its public falling out with the government, according to US research firm Covario.

The company said in spite of the fracas which has led to the search giant re-routing Google.cn searches through Hong Kong, the firm will see its PPC takings from high-tech and consumer electronics companies rise by 43 per cent from quarter one.

However, PPC spend with Baidu, Google’s rival in China, is expected to rise by 210 per cent during the second financial quarter of 2010, compared with Q1.

In a post, Covario said: “Overall strong growth aside, it appears that the prognostications of massive defections from Google are unfounded — the spending on the network in China remains robust.

“However, this strategy by Google clearly is a boon to Baidu — whose spend is up markedly.”

Worldwide, Covario estimates Q2 spending on paid search in the high-tech and consumer electronics sector will be up 24.9 per cent on Q1.

According to the firm, Google will lead the way, benefitting from a 24.9 per cent increase in spending while Yahoo will experience an 11.3 per cent boost. Covario believes Bing will lose out with spending down 13.3 per cent on Q1.

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By Richard Morris

Sunglasses manufacturer Oakley has said it managed to increase website conversion rates by almost 9 per cent, a week after trialling Google’s new Ad Sitelink feature.

Ad Sitelink was launched last November, with the aim of helping increase click-through and conversion rates by offering up to four additional links on paid search adverts, rather than just one to a company’s homepage.

Google says by allowing potential customers access to content deeper within a site, companies are able to create more relevant adverts which improve the value of brand terms and targeted keywords.

Oakley joined a beta test programme for Ad Sitelink and claims within one week, conversions increased by 8.7 per cent, while click-through rates on branded search terms such as “Oakley sunglasses” increased by 14 per cent after two weeks.

According to research firm MarketingSherpa, out of the people who clicked on the PPC ads, 93.51 per cent opted to click on the main link, while 6.49 per cent clicked on one of the four additional links.

The company compared the findings with its second-largest campaign which did not use Ad Sitelinks and experienced a 4.1 per cent conversion rate increase during the same period.

Katie Monsellato, senior account manager at Lakestar Media, said: “Our experience has shown that Sitelinks can have a significant impact on click-through rates for clients. One saw an almost immediate difference, with CTR jumping up by 20 per cent on brand-related search terms and a healthy increase in overall conversion rate of 16 per cent.

“Google Ad Sitelinks help companies increase ownership of their brand space and have greater control of the messaging.  They can be used to complement organic listings and give advertisers the flexibility to include a variety of selling points alongside their core brand message, which is especially useful if there are several other advertisers bidding on your brand terms.”

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By Richard Morris

IEEE, the professional body aimed at advancing technological innovation has said it has managed to significantly boost membership through a LinkedIn PPC campaign.

Using paid adverts displayed on LinkedIn, the networking site for professionals, the organisation said it’s succeeded in increasing the number of quality leads coming through to its website.

Following a two month campaign the IEEE said the channel’s conversion rate was almost three times that of the overall site average. In addition, bounce rate for traffic via LinkedIn was 10 per cent lower than through other sources.

Angela Trilli director of marketing for IEEE, said: “Not only were our results a huge success but we were introduced to a media of marketing that we had never utilised before.”

According to a report by Reuters, professional social networks such as LinkedIn have continued to take off since late 2008.

Martin Olausson, director of digital media strategies unit at research firm Strategy Analytics, said: “The professional social networking industry is recovering very well.

“Because of the recession a lot of people have updated their resumes and increased their professional networking activities in the last year.”

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A canny jobseeker has managed to net his dream job by using Google to advertise for his next employer.

Alec Brownstein used AdWords to buy paid links attached to the names of five creative advertising executives in New York City.

As soon as the men Googled  their own name, they were presented with a paid search ad from Brownstein offering his services and asking for a job.

The Adwords message which included a link to his website read:

“Googling yourself is a lot of fun. Hiring me is fun too.”

Brownstein said his unusual PPC campaign, which cost a grand total of $6 to run, led to interviews with four out of the five companies and job offers from two. He now claims to be working at advertising agency Young & Rubicam in New York.

A YouTube video detailing Brownstein’s unusual take on the job application process is available here.

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Yahoo has announced it is set to launch a pilot service involving a whole page of paid search advertisements.

The trial, called “More Sponsors” will let users click on a link at the bottom of search results pages, which will in turn take them to another page of results filled with PPC adverts related to their original query.

Speaking to MediaPost, David Pann, Yahoo’s vice president of search advertising, said the idea is to “improve search results that meet the needs of those who use its engine”.

The service will only be available on Yahoo! Search to begin with, although the company said it will look at ways of making it available across the network.

Pann said: “We’re looking at ways to test new formats and treatments of search ads to improve the consumer experience. Once we have the page that supports the More Sponsored ads, we can test different treatments of the ads on the page.”

Yahoo said the paid search adverts can be bought through the Yahoo! Search Marketing system and will cost the same as standard PPC ads.

The search firm will choose which ads appear on a More Sponsors page depending on the search terms. Adverts which rank highly in standard PPC results for certain terms are likely to appear on the More Sponsors page for the same query.

More information on the service is due to be released on Wednesday.

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Proof that online advertising spending has remained resilient throughout the wider economic downturn came today when Google announced its latest batch of financial results.

The search giant registered a year-on-year revenue rise of 23 per cent, with revenue of US$6.77billion for the three months to March 31 2010.

Profits rose by 37 per cent – and yet analysts remained stoically unimpressed, and Google shares fell by five per cent after the results were released.

Analysts’ unease seemed to have been caused by news that Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt would no longer take part in the quarterly conference calls announcing the company’s results – despite Google stressing that this had no wider meaning about Schmidt’s role in the company.

There was also some concern that, despite the strong performance, Google’s cost-per-click – the price advertisers pay when someone clicks on their ad – had fallen by four per cent over the final quarter of 2009. This meant that it had risen by seven per cent over the year as a whole, when many analysts had expected its AdWords programme to post an even larger year-on-year rise.

The California-based company still makes most of its revenue from outside the United States, with the proportion having stayed fairly constant over the last two quarters, at 53 per cent and 52 per cent respectively.

Google admitted that it would continue to make substantial investments. Leading up to the results, it had been active in the market, and indeed had made its first foray into the UK, buying visual search recognition app developer Plink.

Its PlinkArt software lets users analyse and identify well-known works of art and gives them the chance to buy poster versions. The developers claim the software was downloaded more than 50,000 times within six weeks of its launch. Plink founders, Mark Cummins and James Philbin, will work on Google’s own visual search project, Google Goggles.

Google had earned US$842million from the UK in the first quarter of 2010, or 13 per cent of its overall revenue – identical to the proportion earned in the same quarter the previous year.

Internationally, it said it had recruited 800 extra staff during the quarter, and its global head-count had reached 20,621 as of March 31.

Internet advertising revenues in the United States topped $6.3bn in the final quarter of 2009, the highest ever result for a three-month period.

This was despite total revenues falling by 3.4 per cent on 2008 figures to $22.7bn, according to figures released by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC).

As with online advertising spending in the UK, paid search features strongly in the US figures. PPC marketing accounted for 47 per cent of money spent online by firms in America, slightly up on 2008, at $10.7bn.

Display-related advertising was up 4 per cent on 2008 at just under $8bn, with digital video experiencing a 39 per cent increase on the previous year.

Although Britain managed to grow its online advertising market by 4.2 per cent during 2009, the US figures do show similar trends emerging.

In the UK, paid search was also one of the largest winners last year with like-for-like growth of 9.5 per cent resulting in total revenues of£2.15bn. Digital video also saw a major boost in the UK during 2009, with growth of 140 per cent.

Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of the IAB, said: “The latest IAB report makes clear that digital media are now a core component of successful advertising and marketing campaigns.

“As consumers spend more of their time immersed in digital media, marketers are increasingly reaching them there -building brands online and making digital the central force in their cross-media strategies.”

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