Covario: Paid Search Spending Up 52% From Last Year

paid search portionPaid search spending in the first quarter of 2008 was up 52% year-over-year, according to new stats from Covario.

The search-centric, online ad management technology and services firm has published the first of a series of quarterly "Global Search Spend Analysis" reports, which detail trends in spending, keyword pricing, and search market share for Covario's global clients.

Covario joins the ranks of firms like Search Ignite and Efficient Frontier that publish quarterly search spending reports, although it appears that the San Diego, Calif.-based company is currently the only one to include overseas spending metrics.

For example, Covario analyzed the search spend of 128 clients (which include brands like P&G and Lenovo), and found that Google leads in market share of spend in both North America and Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). In the first quarter of 2008, advertisers spent nearly 86% of their budgets on Google, up more than 10% year-over-year. The increase came largely at the expense of Yahoo, whose share of spend decreased by just over 12%.

Meanwhile, in EMEA, Google's spend domination was even more prominent, as the search giant snagged 94% of all paid search ad dollars. In Asia-Pacific (APAC), however, Baidu is the king in terms of overall search market share and advertiser spending. Still, because of the platform's lack of an English interface, Covario's clients actually decreased spending on it by nearly 10%.

Covario's Global Search Spend Analysis report is available by request, and accessible via the company's Web site.

Next story loading loading..