• 812 million people used the Internet in 2004 (Source: Nielsen/NetRatings)
• Web users spend twice as much time online as watching TV. (Source: Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society)
• Consumers spent US$199 billion online 2004. (Source: ComScore)
• 75% of all online shoppers said that company size was not a factor having their online shopping needs satisfied (Source: TNS)
• Only 15% said they preferred to shop with large retailers. (Source: TNS)
• More than 80% of all Internet users find new web sites through search engines. (Source Georgia Tech/GVU Users Survey)
• 650 million people use search engines to find web sites.
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM) will grow by 33 percent in 2005, reaching $11.6 billion by 2010. Display advertising, which includes traditional banners and sponsorships, will grow at the average rate of 11 percent over the next 5 years to $8 billion by 2010. (Source: Forrester Research, Inc.)
• We asked participants to indicate an upcoming business to business purchase they might be considering. We then asked them to indicate the methods they would use to research this purchase. A full 93.2% indicated they would go online to research the purchase. (Source: "The Role of Search in Business to Business Buying Decisions", Enquiro / MarketingSherpa)
• In roughly half of all cases, consumers conducted searches related to category of their purchases some time in the preceding 12 weeks [...]. That is, one out of every two online purchases is preceded by research on a search engine. In the case of the travel purchases [...] nearly three out of four travel buyers consulted search engines before making a purchase." (Source: "Search Before the Purchase", DoubleClick, Inc.)
• Search engine usage is second only to email when it comes to the most popular activities performed by Internet users. (Source: Pew Internet study)
• U.S. Bancorp's Piper Jaffray has estimated
  The average cost to acquire a new customer is:
  - Search Engine Optimization - $8.50 per new customer
  - Yellow Page Advertising - $20 per new customer
  - Email Marketing - $60 per new customer
  - Direct Mail Campaigns - $70 per new customer
  - Acquisition costs for television advertising were not available, due in part to the inability to track ROI.
  The costs associated with lead generation:
  - Search Engine Optimization - $0.29/lead
  - Email Marketing - $0.50/lead
  - Yellow Page Advertising - $1.18/lead
  - Banner Advertising - $2.00/lead
  - Direct Mail Campaigns - $9.94/lead

RFQ for Proposal for Search Engine Optimization