Advertisers' survey shows big gap in attitudes to paid and social search

Post by Steven Cox on 16th January 2012
 in E-commerce, PPC, Search, Social media

More than two-thirds of a sample of top global businesses have admitted that they don't have a specific strategy or budget for paid search.

Since the World Federation of Advertisers carried out its last survey in 2009, a divide has also emerged between big businesses' attitude to both mobile and social search. Six per cent of companies questioned said they dedicated 20 per cent or more of their advertising budget to social search – yet on average, it only accounted for three per cent of total search marketing budgets of all the companies questioned.

Forty per cent of the companies which took part in the survey said that, individually, they spent more than £21.66million (€26million) on their total digital marketing strategy, indicating the size of the companies involved.

These multi-national giants also said they were increasingly turning to specialist search agencies to help them boost their online presence, rather than entrust the work to an agency with which they already worked.

The most common factors used to gauge the success of a PPC campaign were click-through rates and average cost per click, which were assessed by 71 per cent and 65 per cent of respondents respectively. Fewer than one in five used sales as a direct measure of PPC success, which, the WFA suggests may be because they see search marketing as affecting consumers in the early stages of their buying decisions.

WFA managing director Stephan Loerke said "greater transparency and clarity among media owners and agency suppliers" could help convince more companies that spending more on paid search would be effective.