Internet Retailer: Search engine marketing can drive sales

Internet Retailer released a new report indicating that online retailers are seeing tremendous boosts from search engine marketing.

The survey found that 37.7 percent of respondents spent more than 50 percent of their marketing budgets on search engine optimization. These retailers are seeing a great deal of success, with 27 percent reporting that more than half their sales were attributable to search engines.

Google continues to be the most popular search engine with consumers, with almost two-thirds of the respondents reporting that more than 70 percent of their online traffic comes from the search engine. Bing seems to be a growing favorite though, with 43.4 percent of merchants expecting to shift some of their marketing budgets to it.

"All types of retailers are focused on driving more web sales, and search is a terrific way to drive that online sales goal," said Shar VanBoskirk, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research who specializes in search engine marketing.

This shift to digital marketing has been seen across various industries - a recent report from the CMO Council found that 46 percent of marketing firms were investing more in digital marketing, like search engine optimization.