This month, Hanapin Marketing released their annual survey of the search marketing industry. They asked hundreds of marketing professionals to answer a series of questions about their own paid search campaigns.

Of those that participated, 63% had an annual budget of more than $300,000 and most were managers or higher with their respective companies. Here is what they found:

• The focus of the industry continues to be on text ads and remarketing. In fact, 95% felt that text ads were by far the most important aspect of their campaigns. 64% felt that remarketing (the process of showing ads to users who’ve previously visited the website) was important. Interestingly, 68% felt that social ads were not very important.
• When it comes to spending money, the responders plan to spend most of their budgets on traditional ad networks. As far as social media ad spends go, Facebook continues to be the leader, but still lags behind Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
• Most responders said that they felt good about the current PPC market (83%), but maybe not as good as last year. They also felt that there will be more growth in the PPC market next year and most plan to increase PPC spending in 2014.
• In 2014, most responders said they would be focusing their efforts on Google Adwords, followed by Bing, display networks, and Facebook. A small number will be focused on Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social networks.
• Within the PPC industry, the focus will be clearly on “conversion rate optimization.” In fact, 85% said they would be focusing on optimizing conversion rates. Many will also be focusing on entering new ad networks, automation software, and tag management.

This survey illustrates that the PPC industry is thriving, growing, and should be a large part of any good digital marketing program. Google ads are still the king of all PPC arenas and Facebook still rules the social scene. It’s an exciting time in the industry, and 2014 should be a great year for paid search with no slowdown in sight.