Most SEM money spent with Google, Yahoo

Look for the two biggest dogs in the search engine marketing pound to get bigger over the next few years. According to a new report from eMarketer, the majority of SEM dollars are already going to Google and Yahoo and you can expect that to stay the same for the foreseeable future.

by Kristina Knight

Researchers expect the two search giants to bring in more than 90% of search marketing dollars this year. For new search engines, this is bad news but for advertisers the news isn't all that bad.

Why?

According to the report, more advertisers are glomming on to the Yahoo and Google monsters but user numbers are staying relatively flat across the board. Meaning users are still using their favorite search platforms, not just Yahoo and Google. With fewer marketers using the smaller search engines, but the same number of consumers there is less clutter for users and a greater chance that they will find specific ads for specific products.

For search engines, the good news is that even though Yahoo and Google are obtaining the largest share of ad dollars, there are more ad dollars that ever spent on search marketing, and there will be some trickle down effects. SEM accounts for just over 40% of the total ad spend. In 2007 advertisers spent more than $6.9 billion on search marketing campaigns. By 2011, that number is expected to explode to more than $16.1 billion.