Paid search has more or less taken over as one of the leading forms of advertising on the internet.  Traditional techniques including mass-media (newspaper, television, radio, etc.) have been suffering over the past couple years as challenging economic times have caused advertisers and marketers to be cautious and even abandon their marketing initiatives. A recent report by the Newspaper Association of America projects newspapers will achieve a new low in advertising sales in 2011.  The Association expects ad revenue to be $24 billion, almost 50 percent less than its peak of $49 billion in 2005.  While this sharp decline in newspaper advertising certainly includes concerns over the economy, at the same time, cost-efficient advertising including paid search has been surging.

Paid search includes the implementation of pay per click services to create targeted ads on search engines including Google, Yahoo! and Bing.  While PPC is still a relatively new concept to marketers, its results thus far are astounding.  Google release their Q3 earnings report in October and posted a $10 billion increase in revenue, 23% of which is due to a surge in paid search revenue.  While this is a small piece of the puzzle, truth is research indicates paid search is expected to continue its upward trend thru 2016 (*important note models end at 2016).

As paid search becomes the new era of advertising, marketers should pay attention to the reputation of PPC companies.  Ensure your PPC firm is a Certified Google AdWords Partner.  Also, make sure the firm has a reputable list of clients and has demonstrated their expertise in the field.