SEMPO State of Search Marketing Report 2011

Search engine optimization:

• The number of companies engaging in SEO has decreased from 90% in 2010 to 86% in 2011
• 54% of the companies expect to spend more on SEO, 10% will spend twice as much
• Companies expect to spend 43% more on SEO in 2011 than they did in 2010
• Companies spending more than 40% of their natural search budgets with agencies has increased by 14%
• 36% of the companies (up from 29% in 2010) spent more than $75,000 per year on SEO only

PPC:

• The number of companies engaging in PPC has decreased from 81% in 2009 to 79% in 2011
• On an average, companies expect to spend 31% more on PPC
• Companies will spend less on local and international campaigns, 58% of PPC budget to go towards national campaigns
• 29% spent more than $1 million in the past year on PPC, up from 20% in 2010
• 56% of the companies plan to spend more on paid search in 2011 than they did in 2010

Social Media:

• 64% of the companies will increase their social media budgets
• Proportion of companies engaged in social media has gone up from 72% in 2010 to 74% this year

Now, the reason behind the unsettling sub-title is here:

• 41% of the companies stated that social media had moderate impact on their SEM activity
• Companies who believe social media is primarily for better customer service has increased from 8% to 13% this year
• 4% less companies believe social media is for generating leads

Other important trends:

• Rise of mobile internet is seen by 79% of the companies as the trend with most impact on search marketing
• Personalization of search results (79%) Behavioral Targeting (78%) and Local Search (62%) are other trends with most impact
• 58% of company marketers deem user uptake of 'Do Not Track' to be a significant trend
• 84% (up from 73%) of companies use Facebook , 75% use Twitter and 52% use Linkedin for marketing
• 45% of companies in the world use Facebook for PPC campaigns, seen as a rising challenge to Google

For this edition of the report, more than 900 companies and agencies were surveyed across 66 different countries. It seems SEO will continue to be the most preferred method for lead generation for a long time to come. More marketers are realizing that social media is more suited for branding, which may make it less viable for small businesses.  What's your opinion?