Paid search up 33%, researchers say

Story originally appeared on the BizReport.

Paid search may not be as sexy as social media or as entertaining as video but a large number of advertisers continue to invest in the option. According to new data out from Covario global paid search spending increased 33% in Q1 2013 (vs. Q1 2012).

The highest PPC spending increases were seen in North America (29% Year over Year growth) and a new focus on mobile search options. According to the report mobile PPC spending increased 51% quarter to quarter and more than 120% YoY. Meanwhile European PPC spending increased 20% quarter to quarter.

Mobile now accounts for about 14% of the search spend - 36% of that goes to smartphones and 64% to tablets.

"While efficiency is still the trend in Europe with rising click-through rates," Funk said, "CPC prices have jumped, increasing by 13 percent over Q4," said Alex Funk, author of the report and Director, Global Paid Media Strategy, Covario. "Superfluous impressions have been reined in, resulting in much higher CTRs on ad creative."

Meanwhile in the East, the Asia/Pacific region saw clicks increase by more than 30% for Q1 and spending increase by 24%.

As for how search minded advertisers should approach the remainder of 2013, Funk suggests budgets will increase up to 20%.

As for the search breakdown, comScore reports that in February Google sites accounted for more than 67% of explicit core search queries; Microsoft accounted for 16% and Yahoo for 11.6%. More than 18 billion explicit core searches were queried. More than two-thirds (69.7%) of organic search results included results from Google.