US spending on search advertising to decline over 20% this quarter, eMarketer forecasts

eMarketer today forecasted a decline between 8.7% and 14.8% in search advertising spending, in H1 2020. This is about $6 billion to $8 billion less than what eMarketer expected before the coronavirus pandemic.

According to eMarketer, the search ad spending was flat in Q1, however eMarketer expects that the search ad spending in Q2 will experience a steeper decline of between 20.2% and 29.4% on a year-over-year basis.

eMarketer believes travel advertisers will decrease search spending most sharply, but other industries will follow.

eMarketer says search budgets aren’t committed in advance and can be paused at any time, and search is normally a lower-funnel ad channel (performance) that is geared toward driving conversions (that can stop due to quarantines, inventory shortfalls and related problems).

Google this month reassured publishers that will continue to pay on time. IAB says that due to the coronavirus pandemic, the digital ad spend is down 33%.