Report: PPC Beats Out Email

They say not to put too much faith into a single survey, but how about two surveys in two weeks? Last week eMarketer released a report predicting that paid search would soon become the preferred advertising method of the future, estimating that PPC advertising spending would hit $10 billion by 2009. This time it’s an annual ad:tech survey reporting 52 percent of surveyed marketers tout their paid search campaigns ‘greatly outperformed’ all other advertising methods in 2005 – including email to house lists.

This was the first time in the survey’s three year history that PPC beat out email to house lists (which came in second at 47%) for the top advertising method. Is this a signal of things to come? Maybe – and that doesn’t even take into consideration the abysmal performance of rented lists:

“Fifty-two percent of marketers said e-mail to rented lists topped their list of tactics that performed poorly. Behavioral targeting lost ground as a tactic for the first time this year, with 36% citing it as great, compared with 41% in the 2004 survey.”

Both reports hinted the effectiveness and success of paid search would be rooted in its ability for better targeting and a sharp rise in local search. Marketers and advertisers alike are beginning to realize the Internet is the best place to make contact with users – regardless of the size or kind of business, according to eMarketer’s Senior Analyst David Hallerman.

The survey, conducted with research company MarketingSherpa, also indicated that online budgets were up for 2006 as the industry steps up investments in RSS, blogging and video ad campaigns.

“Forty percent said they will invest in adding RSS feeds this year, 35% will invest in in-house blogs, 30% will place ads on third-party blogs, and 27% said they will invest in video ads.

One is chance but twice is harder to ignore. Marketers are starting to see (and take advantage of) the power that paid search has to offer – targeted, localized advertising. You can’t afford to fall behind. Now is the time to take a look at your PPC campaigns and refine them. Are you getting the most out of your advertising budget? If not, let us offer our services.

(Hat-Tip to MarketingVOX)

Lisa Barone is a writer, content marketer & VP of strategy at Overit Media. She's also a very active Twitterer, much to the dismay of the rest of the world.

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