• eMarketer , Wednesday, April 9, 2008 1 PM

Search is chewing up other media budgets, according to the latest Search Engine Marketing: User and Spending Trends report from eMarketer. According to the online marketing research firm's analysts, "Even as some marketers rein in spending to hedge against further economic problems, search engine marketing (SEM) is in great shape--at least for the moment."

EMarketer is predicting U.S. search marketing spending to top $13.6 billion this year, slightly lower than SEMPO's prediction of $15.7 billion. And search marketers seem to be comfortable maintaining or increasing their spend, even as average CPCs trend upward. "About three-quarters of respondents worldwide said they could live with further rises in paid placement prices," the analysts wrote. "Among those who said they could stand more price increases, more than half wanted those increases to be 30% or less."

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