Search marketing will grow 16% this year to $19.3 billion and 74% of North American ad agencies say their clients use Facebook, according to a study released Wednesday. The report, from the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, is based on an online survey of 920 companies carried out in February and March. The companies reported a rise in mobile marketing, which accounts for some of the rise in search advertising. Local search was cited as the most significant new trend, though the respondents said behavioral targeting is becoming more important as well. The survey also found that more marketers are outsourcing their SEO and social media to agencies. The 16% growth figure for search is a slight jump over last year’s 14% rise. Meanwhile, researcher eMarketerpredicts an 11.2% jump in search marketing revenues for 2011 vs. 2010 and places the total revenue figure for the end of 2011 at $16.6 billion. That said, eMarketer’s figures refer specifically to U.S. spending, while SEMPO’s refer to North American spending. Below are SEMPO’s estimates for the market over the past few years: Here are some other findings:

• 40% of respondents said that the growth of the mobile Internet was “highly significant,” compared with 26% last year.
• 84% of companies (rather than the figure for agencies, listed above) use Facebook to promote themselves, compared with 73% last year.
• 75% of companies use Twitter to promote their companies or brands and 52% use LinkedIn.
• 44% of companies do SEO in-house, compared with 51% last year.
• 55% are doing social media marketing in-house, compared with 62% last year.

    [da http://mashable.com/2011/04/13/search-marketing-16-percent/]