Mobile search gets bigger share of marketers’ budgets

Marketers are spending more and more money on mobile search. According to a new report producted by marketing insight firm Econsultancy, the proportion of marketing budgets allocated to mobile PCC has increased significantly in 2011.

Out of the 600 digital marketers and agencies surveyed, 16% are using mobile search as part of their marketing strategy. That’s exactly double of those using mobile search last year. A further 45% are planning to involve mobile search in their marketing strategy.

Meanwhile, a third of agencies surveyed report that their clients are involved with mobile search – an increase of 12% from last year.

The links between social networking sites and PPC also appears to be growing stronger. Most of the marketers questioned say that they have increased the amount of money they are spending in PPC investment in The majority of client-side marketers say that, over the last year, their companies have also increased their PPC investment in Facebook (65%), LinkedIn (62%), YouTube (55%) and Twitter (54%).

The survey also revealed an increased focus on local search. Agencies quizzed in the survey said that 22% of their clients’ budgets are spend on locally targeted paid search. The figure was only slightly less amongst the companies surveyed (17%).

The emergence of local search as part of a marekting strategy could be linked to the boom in the smartphone market.