Report Looks at Online Advertising in Q1 Compared to Q4 ’09

The Webvisible Report: State of Small Business Online Advertising Q1 2010, which examines trends among Webvisible’s U.S. advertisers finds that for about a fourth of small businesses, online video is converting. In Q1, 23% of advertisers who posted video recorded video views, up from 19% in Q4 2009, the firm says.

The firm also says the data represents nearly $23 million in U.S. small business advertiser spending from more than 12,000 individual advertisers in Q1 2010.

Website conversion activities of all types increased in Q1 2010 over the previous quarter, according to the report. The fastest-growing conversion actions were form fills and video views.  In Q1, 21% of advertisers showed conversions on form fills (up from 15% the previous quarter).

With regard to search, Bing saw its share of search spending increase by 10% in Q1 over the previous quarter, while Google’s share increased by 3% over the same period, according to the report. Yahoo’s share of spending dropped by 9%, the firm says. Yahoo and Microsoft will share a share before long, so that’s not too worrisome for Yahoo, and most likely has a good deal to do with the drop anyway.

Webvisible’s report says the average small business advertiser spent $2,201 on search advertising in Q1, representing a 2.4% increase over the previous quarter and a 91% increase over the same period last year.