Search advertising

We are a nation of searchers. Think about when you are looking for something online, where do you go? Search engines are often where you begin your online session, either to take you directly to what you are looking for or to begin the research process.

Paid-for search has a 58.3% share of revenue, worth £981 million in 2008, that’s up from £531.3 million in 2006. Search should underpin all your online activity, and the ideal long-term strategy is to have high visibility on both paid and natural sides of the search results. A combined strategy of pay per click and search engine optimisation will also give the greatest chance of consumer clicks, resulting in higher click and conversion volumes.


IAB estimates for actual ad spend by format are based on samples of categorised revenue from key IAB members by PwC. Data excludes unclassified figures.

Natural search results - are those listings that appear at the discretion of the search engines with no charge to the listed site. These are usually the main results.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) – is the practice of improving the visibility of your website to search engines for keywords that are relevant to your business. The goal of SEO is to achieve good ranking in natural search results.

Paid for search or pay-per-click (PPC) – here search engines will guarantee advertisers a place in the search results. The order of which they appear is dependant on the amount of money the advertiser is prepared to pay for a ‘click’ on their listing. To achieve a certain position in the search results, advertisers will bid against particular keywords.

Social search – websites such as Yahoo! Answers and Wikipedia are good examples of user-generated content. Social search focuses on the content resulting from these, such as opinions, blogs, sharing, reviews and ranking.

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