Although the economy is showing signs of improvement, a new report suggests small businesses are trying to get smarter with their paid search spend while decreasing their spend budget.
The State of Small Business Advertising report, conducted by online advertising firm WebVisible, found that the average small business spent $2,126 on search in Q4 2010, a 1.1% year-over-year decrease from 2009. The average keyword count was 87 root keywords per advertiser over the last three months of the year — a 30% increase from the same period in 2009.
The study, which included more than 10,000 small businesses in the U.S., indicates smaller advertisers are scaling back but becoming more efficient with paid search. This report was limited to search engines and did not include Facebook or other social media spend.
According to the report, online video usage by small businesses is on the rise with 26% of advertisers using video on their landing pages in the fourth quarter. This is up from 19% the previous year and watching video now ranks second in user actions when visiting a landing page; clicking through to the advertiser’s main Web site was the most common user action. Video views as a percentage of all user activity on landing pages skyrocketed 85% from 2009 to 2010.
Request the report here.
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