After consecutive quarters of falling ad spend, search marketing has stabilized, according to Search Engine Land, citing data from Efficient Frontier.
Overall SEM spending was down 21 percent in the second quarter of 2009 compared to a year ago, but spending fell only 3 percent from Q1, showing that search advertising is beginning to hold steady.
Search has been touted as "recession-proof" throughout the current economic downturn, and while marketers have cut back spending on search this year, the overall return on investment from SEM has gone up, according to Efficient Frontier.
One other noteworthy bit from the report is the gains made by Bing since launching in June. Microsoft's search products had lost spend share in three consecutive quarters, but Bing was actually able to steal a sliver (0.6 percent) of Google's spend share in the second quarter.
