• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, December 2, 2010

The music of cash registers ringing rang loudly on Cyber Monday for companies supporting paid-search advertising -- in fact, so loudly that PM Digital and Efficient Frontier suggested clients increase paid-search spend.

In a blog posted Wednesday aimed at advertisers, Siddharth Shah, Efficient Frontier director of business analytics, explains how advertisers could have gained between 30% and 40% more business on Cyber Monday had they increased their search engine marketing budgets for Cyber Monday.

Paid-search sales metrics for PM Digital's retail clients rose 70% on both Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but the good news for retailers came when order volume rose 62% and 63%, respectively. Revenue from sales on Thanksgiving Day doubled, compared with the same day in the prior year, according to the Rewind Paid Search Performance Index: November 2010, which measures U.S. paid-search performance for online retailers.

As confirmed by similar reports, consumers started researching and shopping online for gifts early this year. And brands took advantage of the trend. November data from the Rewind Paid Search Performance Index reveals paid-search revenue rose 60%, year-over-year. PM Digital clients experienced growth by increasing the amount spent on ads by about 69%. Clicks, conversion and average order value (AOV) also rose in November.

A survey from network monitor software provider Ipswitch reveals that about half of IT administrators expected to lose more than 20% of their company's network bandwidth from employees shopping on the job Cyber Monday. Some consumers believe that the hype leading up to Cyber Monday convinced employers to turn a blind eye, allowing workers to help boost the economy.

Research from comScore released Wednesday revealed Cyber Monday to be the biggest online shopping day ever, with $1.03 billion dollars being spent.

Cyber Monday became the top day for paid-search clicks, and click indexes showed the same end-of-month behavior as paid-search spend and sales. The uniformity among paid-search shoppers early in the holiday season bodes well as retailers work their way through December.