Search spending Q4 was strong, leading to an upside for Google, and 2011 ad budgets remain healthy.
The most interesting bit is that social ad spending may not be taking away from search ad spending: At our online advertising dinner in November 2010, some [Search Engine Marketer] SEMs had mentioned that advertisers were giving them budgets earmarked for social. When asked if social ad spend was taking dollars away from search, our panelists were unanimous in their view that the spend is incremental, still experimental and is not hurting search spend in any way. They added that on social ad campaigns, it’s very hard to get scale while maintaining a good ROI. At our online advertising dinner in November 2010, some [Search Engine Marketer] SEMs had mentioned that advertisers were giving them budgets earmarked for social. When asked if social ad spend was taking dollars away from search, our panelists were unanimous in their view that the spend is incremental, still experimental and is not hurting search spend in any way. They added that on social ad campaigns, it’s very hard to get scale while maintaining a good ROI. Also, some notes on mobile search spending and tablets, which are hard to classify: I had heard from ooVoo’s CEO that he was seeing higher CPC rates in mobile, specifically when geo-targeting was used. And finally, Google Instant showed modest benefit to search volume, indicating that user experience has improved but, overall, Instant didn’t affect revenue that much.
Google (GOOG) watchers may want to take note of some research from Kaufman Bros. today.