Ad Buyer: No Slowdown In Search Or Google

Another conflicting data point on Google's disastrous January: SearchIgnite, one of the largest buyers of search inventory from Google, says its clients saw a 40.1% y/y increase in paid clicks on Google in the beginning weeks of 2008.

SearchIgnite, a $200 million-per-year buyer of search advertising, said paid clicks grew 45.7% y/y on all major search engines from Jan. 1 to Feb. 15, led by retailers (up 65%) and non mortgage-related financial services, which appear to be shifting budgets to search in the face of a slowdown.

Google (GOOG) shares are getting hammered after a comScore report that showed paid clicks as flat in January, after turning in only 25% y/y growth in Q4, a quarter that disappointed Wall Street. But SearchIgnite says they aren't seeing a slowdown -- at least not among the large brand advertisers based in the U.S. that make the bulk of its client base, and not the small and medium-sized advertisers driving Google's falling click rates.

They are, however, seeing something else worrisome: SearchIgnite says it is seeing early signs of declining conversion rates, a looming problem for marketers down the road. Click-through rates fell to 3.6% from 4.2% the year before.

The data from SearchIgnite, a division of Innovation Interactive, is derived from 800 million impressions and 53 million clicks across major search engines Google, Yahoo (YHOO) and Microsoft's (MSFT) MSN.

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