Don't get left behind as Everyone Else ramps up their Online Marketing

The fourth quarter of 2009 brought more growth in the search engine marketing industry, according to a new report.

Figures from Efficient Frontier showed that, in the US, there was a six per cent increase in both year-on-year and month-on-month growth, with the retail sector seeing a notable increase.

Shops spent 46 per cent more quarter-on-quarter on their strategies, which may include approaches such as managed emarketing or search engine optimisation.

David Karnstedt, president and chief executive officer of Efficient Frontier, said that the results "paint a much rosier picture than we've seen in more than a year".

He observed that although search engine marketing spend in some industries - such as travel - will continue to be low, the firm predicts overall growth for 2010 will be at least 15 per cent.

The company also forecast that the Microsoft-owned search engine Bing will return to growth in the coming months after stalling in the latter stages of 2010.