eMarketer.com released a study that shows how SEO has grown 33% in 2005 to 45% in 2006 in the category of best performing online advertising tactic, whereas search ads have declined a from 52% in 2005 to 49% in 2006. As you can see, search ads are still rated the best performing online advertising strategy, followed by email ads (in-house lists) and then by SEO. The study also shows that 34% of the ad budget is going to search marketing, 25% is going towards SEO tactics and 22% towards contextual ads.

Related Topics: SEM Industry: General | SEO: General | Stats: General

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz