From a recent Marketing Sherpa report, the amount of money marketers are spending on paid search is growing at a slower pace; due primarily to economic. At the same time, marketers are spending a higher % of their budgets on paid search because of it’s accountability.
Search’s share of total online ad spending jumped sharply in 2008, to 45.3% from 2007’s 41.5%. That increase was due almost entirely to economic circumstances. That is, hard times brought more ad budget scrutiny-so search’s high accountability put it in sharp focus.