Facts

812 million people used the Internet in 2004 (Source: Nielsen/NetRatings)

Web users spend twice as much time online as watching TV. (Source: Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society)

Consumers spent US$199 billion online 2004. (Source: ComScore)

75% of all online shoppers said that company size was not a factor having their online shopping needs satisfied (Source: TNS)

Only 15% said they preferred to shop with large retailers. (Source: TNS)

More than 80% of all Internet users find new web sites through search engines. (Source Georgia Tech/GVU Users Survey)

650 million people use search engines to find web sites.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) will grow by 33 percent in 2005, reaching $11.6 billion by 2010. Display advertising, which includes traditional banners and sponsorships, will grow at the average rate of 11 percent over the next 5 years to $8 billion by 2010. (Source: Forrester Research, Inc.)

We asked participants to indicate an upcoming business to business purchase they might be considering. We then asked them to indicate the methods they would use to research this purchase. A full 93.2% indicated they would go online to research the purchase. (Source: “The Role of Search in Business to Business Buying Decisions”, Enquiro / MarketingSherpa)

In roughly half of all cases, consumers conducted searches related to category of their purchases some time in the preceding 12 weeks [...]. That is, one out of every two online purchases is preceded by research on a search engine. In the case of the travel purchases [...] nearly three out of four travel buyers consulted search engines before making a purchase.” (Source: “Search Before the Purchase”, DoubleClick, Inc.)

Search engine usage is second only to email when it comes to the most popular activities performed by Internet users. (Source: Pew Internet study)

U.S. Bancorp’s Piper Jaffray has estimated
The average cost to acquire a new customer is:
- Search Engine Optimization – $8.50 per new customer
- Yellow Page Advertising – $20 per new customer
- Email Marketing – $60 per new customer
- Direct Mail Campaigns – $70 per new customer
- Acquisition costs for television advertising were not available, due in part to the inability to track ROI.
The costs associated with lead generation:
- Search Engine Optimization – $0.29/lead
- Email Marketing – $0.50/lead
- Yellow Page Advertising – $1.18/lead
- Banner Advertising – $2.00/lead
- Direct Mail Campaigns – $9.94/lead