New Forecast Predicts Increase in Spend on Paid Search & Social Media Marketing

As marketers look to channels and tactics to achieve their key goals, new research suggests that they will be investing heavily in paid search and social media going forward.

Zenith recently published its Advertising Expenditure Forecasts for marketers, and statistics showed that between 2017 and 2020, total spending on paid search in the U.S. will increase from $86 billion to $109 billion. In addition, total spending on social media between this time period is expected to increase from $48 billion to $76 billion.

“Paid search has undergone constant development in recent years,” wrote the authors of the report. “Search platforms, agencies and brands are applying ever more sophisticated artificial intelligence techniques to improve targeting, messaging and conversion. Search is becoming more integrated with commerce, both online – as brands shift budgets to e-commerce platforms – and offline, as retailers use location and store inventory data to match active shoppers directly with the products they’re searching for.”

The researchers behind the report also stated that they expect social media adspend to grow by an average of 16 percent a year leading up to 2020, twice the rate of paid search.

Marketers and Social Media Spend

This isn’t the first time that statistics have indicated a turn toward social media marketing.

The American Marketing Association, Deloitte and Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business conducted “The CMO Survey,” and found that spending on social media has increased more over the last year (between August 2017-2018) than in any prior survey year.

Over the next 12 months, marketers stated that they intend to spend as much as 16.3 percent of their budgets on social media. Within the next five years, this percentage jumps to 22.9 percent.