WebVisible Releases 2009 Q3 Report on the State of Small Business Online Advertising

WebVisible, Inc., a provider of local online advertising, announced it has released its 2009 Q3 Report on the State of Small Business Online Advertising.

According to WebVisible, this report is gleaned from data gathered over 90 days from a sample of WebVisible's small and medium sized business clients. It examines local interactive advertising trends through Q3 2009, using Q3 2008 as a baseline. WebVisible said it has worked with more than 100,000 clients across more than 3,000 vertical categories around the world.

Among the report's highlights is its finding that Yahoo and Bing/MSN have both gained market share among the major search engines, perhaps as much as five percent (5 percent). The report also notes that the tide continues to rise for all the search engines in Local - including Google. Microsoft's newly-launched Bing seems to be doing especially well since its summer launch.

"Microsoft spent a lot of money over the summer to launch Bing, and they targeted their campaign directly at local business owners," said Matt Booth, SVP and Program Director, Interactive Local Media for BIA/Kelsey. "I should think that they would be encouraged by these results, as more and more SMBs move their ad budgets away from print and directories and online, small market share increases will come to represent big dollars."

"The big picture is great news for SMBs and good news for the Engines," said Kirsten Mangers, WebVisible CEO. "Local revenue is up across the board, and the number of first-time buyers to increase quarter-on-quarter. Anyone would feel good about the increased competition in these markets. But, the real news is that these SMB advertisers are getting results from their interactive budgets that they've been after for years now. Local interactive is on the rise - because it works."

WebVisible further noted in its report that Cost per Clicks (CPCs), the amount advertisers spend for each keyword term or phrase clicked on by users, has been increasing steadily for small business advertisers. This, after a drop due to reduced spending in Q2 2009, CPCs stabilized in Q3. While Google still dominates the charts with the most market share, the numbers have decreased as advertisers spread their money across other search engines. In Q3 2009, Google accounted for 60.4 percent of search advertising spending. Yahoo! accounted for 26.2 percent, Bing 10.5 percent and Ask 2.4 percent. Google lost five points year-over-year (YoY) as spend shifted among these other engines. Bing (formerly Live Search, Windows Live Search, and MSN Search) is the current web search engine from Microsoft and also powers Yahoo! Search, has stepped up to compete for a chunk of the local advertiser budget. With CPC rates almost 30 percent lower than Google in some verticals, according to the WebVisible Report, Bing has been able to gain market share from the Search giant.

Other notable findings in the WebVisible report show Click-through rates (CTR) improved YoY across all the engines, with the biggest improvement on Yahoo!, whose CTR improved 123 percent from Q3 2008 to Q3 2009.

BIA/Kelsey advises companies in the local media space through Consulting and Valuation Services, Research, Continuous Advisory Services, and Conferences. Since 1983 BIA/Kelsey has been a resource to the media, mobile advertising, telecommunications, Yellow Pages and electronic directories markets, as well as to government agencies, law firms and investment companies looking to understand trends and revenue drivers.

More Information:

http://www.webvisible.com/learning-center/free-resources.php

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