PPC sees massive boost in spending by US business during 2011

Post by Aurora Johnson on 19th January 2012
 in E-commerce, Google, PPC

While figures continue to show that 2011 was by far the biggest-spending Christmas so far online, more detailed research has also shown that companies increased pay-per-click advertising spending by almost one-third over the year.

Their efforts were also said to be paying off, with click-through rates and m-commerce volumes also seen to be growing rapidly.

Their efforts were also said to be paying off, with click-through rates and m-commerce volumes seen to be growing rapidly.

PPC was particularly popular among companies in the consumer electronics and high-tech sector, found analysts at Covario. Their increasing use of the channel helped spur a 21 per cent rise in paid search spending in the US during 2011, their research found.

More than $1billion was spent by online shoppers on 10 separate days running up to Christmas, comScore reported, yet this did not translate into lower sales at bricks-and-mortar stores, said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni.

"With brick-and-mortar holiday retail estimated to have grown about four per cent this year, it’s clear that e-commerce continues to gain market share from traditional retail due to the attractiveness of the Internet’s convenience and lower prices,” he said.

And while Google has a more than 40 per cent share of all PPC spending in the Americas and Europe, Middle East and Asia markets, it is being rapidly caught by Baidu, whose market share had ballooned from under 10 per cent in early 2009, to almost the same as Google's by the end of last year. Baidu's share of the PPC market in the Asia-Pacific region has now reached 60 per cent, Covario reported.