PPC Spending Exceeding Expectations

Google's first quarter net revenue was $1.3 billion - or if the numbers hold through without continued growth would be $5.2 billion for 2005. At the start of the year forecasts for the industry as a whole were around that number and people thought them about right.

Merrill Lynch saw the numbers for the industry at between $5.1 and $5.6 billion.

Forrester Research saw the numbers at about $5.7 billion.

Gary Stein, a senior analyst at JupiterResearch,said "paid search will continue to grow faster than any other sector of online advertising, increasing from $2.6 billion in 2004 to $5.5 billion in 2009." So I guess we will see no more growth for the next 4 years.

Early this year I questioned these numbers and the whole forecasting approach in general. Obviously like us PPC marketers the industry needs numbers and the ability to do some predictions. I would think in an industry that lives by numbers we would be a little more accurate.

Guess the numbers were taking into account the refunds that will be coming once all this click fraud is worked out!!!!