Everyone in the business knows that the economy is hammering ad spending, almost across the media board. There is one exception.
Search.
“Search ad spending may not be recession-proof,” says David Hallerman, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, Search Ad Spending: Reactions to a Recession, “but it is proving to be recession-resistant.”
eMarketer estimates that while the rate of search ad spending growth was down in 2008, search still grew 21% over 2007.
Even though the rate of growth is projected to fall over the next three years, search ad spending growth will continue to be positive, in double digits every year until 2012 when it will rise again to nearly 14%.
“To put those figures in context,” Mr. Hallerman says, “while some online ad spending is relatively flat or dropping—such as display advertising and classifieds—and when other traditional media are showing annual spending downturns—such as radio and newspapers—the search market starts to look pretty good.”
In a tough economy, the need to reduce risk and increase accountability has become even more critical for marketers.
“In order to survive, companies have to maintain an online presence,” he says. “Search is an essential tool for driving traffic to the company’s site.”
In that light, search marketing—both paid ads and search engine optimization (SEO)—becomes a fixed cost of doing business, and will help sustain search spending.
Another key factor, which will buoy search ad spending, is the range of businesses that use search.
“Unlike television advertising, mainly dependent on large advertisers, or newspaper advertising, which depends on small, local businesses, the search market is diverse,” Mr. Hallerman says.
Search takes in a wide range of marketers, nearly every industry category and all business sizes.
“Over a million advertisers across all sectors bidding on hundreds of millions of keyword combinations in an ROI-measured environment creates a great deal of market stability in a time of market turmoil,” he says.
The appeal of search to both direct-response and branding marketers is also a further support for spending.