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Internet retailers are shifting more of their marketing budgets to buy pay-per-click online ads and improve their organic search results, writes Internet Retailer (via MarketingVox), citing a survey it conducted.
Some 30 percent of responding merchants say at least 50 percent of their sales come via search engine marketing; 82.8 percent say their PPC spending will not be reduced in 2007; and 75 percent say search is performing as well as or better than other forms of marketing. Only 12 percent say SEM underperformed compared with other marketing efforts.
Somewhat surprisingly, most e-tailers prefer to keep their efforts in-house. Only 26 percent use an outside agency or PPC program, and 66 percent say they have no intention of contracting out for such efforts.
Some 39 percent emphasize PPC over organic SEO, and 34 percent put the focus on natural search; 26 percent say they use both equally. For sales conversions, 46 percent say organic search has better results, and 37 percent cite PPC as having a higher conversion rate; 16 percent say they’re equally effective.
Eighty percent of e-tailers are making changes to their website text to match what people are searching for. For the most poart, those engaged in PPC efforts plan to trim the number of keywords they manage but increase spending on those that survive the cull. The intents is to improve ROI on the most effective keywords.
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Below, fiscal results from the discount retail giants:
Sales of food and…
