In an effort to generate even more holiday sales, retailers spent approximately 22 percent more year-over-year on paid search advertising initiatives, according to a new report from Ignition One.

The majority of those advertising dollars were spent on Google, the current search market leader. Merchants invested 81.8 percent of their budgets in the Mountain View, California-based company's portal, while 18.1 percent allocated funds to Microsoft Bing, which also powers results on Yahoo.

Overall for the year, retailers' paid search expenditures grew 26 percent, highlighting the importance of leveraging the platform to bolster online and in-store sales. Other core metrics increased as well, including impressions (up 42 percent), clicks (42 percent) and transactions (67 percent).

"Search ads had their biggest quarter yet despite the tepid-to-poor economy. In particular, mobile searches exploded. As the largest search ad seller by a light-year, Google stands to benefit," the report concludes.

With more retail brands opening online shops, it's crucial that merchants promote their website through not only paid search ads but social media and email as well.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Wednesday, January 11th, 2012 at 2:43 am .