Search Engine Marketers to See Big Holiday Season

According to DoubleClick’s affiliate network arm, Performics, online marketers could be in for a huge holiday season. This is assuming that a general rule remains true to form.

The report released by Performics is based on the Performics 50, which is an index of “well-managed paid search campaigns designed to monitor the growth of paid search advertising,” according to the company.

The rule that seems to indicate a coming boon for search marketers is that fourth quarter sales are usually equal to the sum of first and second quarter activity. Going along with this formula, this year’s fourth quarter is on pace to besting last year’s fourth quarter by 53%.

This rule also applies to budgeting and marketing costs.

During the second quarter, the cost per keyword increased $0.14, which translates into less than 0.5%, indicating that keyword costs are remaining steady.

Year-over-year conversions, search spend, and impressions all increased by almost 50% during the second quarter. In addition, active keywords jumped 58% from last year, while the total number of clicks increased by 32%.

Keywords that cost over $1.00 per click saw up to 20% of all impressions in June, which was a noticeable increase from the 14% ratio in March.

The Q2 2006 “DoubleClick Performics 50 Search Trend Report” said that this stemmed from “both an increase in existing keyword prices as well as the addition of newer, more popular keywords.”

“Marketers can analyze and combine their first and second quarter budgets in order to determine their likely spend for all of the fourth quarter,” said the Performics report titled “Online Marketers Can Expect Big Numbers This Holiday Season.”

“Additionally, October is the optimal time to detect and correct any campaign variances in order to capitalize on the holiday rush. Intervention at this time can prevent substantial loss and improve November and December revenue.”

Sources:

http://performics.com/our_company_files/
dc_search_q206.pdf

http://performics.com/our_company_files/
PFX50_Release_FINAL.pdf