Paid search engine ads account for 40% of UK Internet ad spending

Paid listings services like Espotting, Google and Overture have had massive growth and now account for over 40% of UK online ad spend. Jupiter Research warns that CPC rates are rising rapidly and it's unlikely that response rates will rise as fast, which means returns will diminish and cost effectiveness of paid listings will reduce. More importantly, said Danny Sullivan, 70% of the users don't look at paid listings at all, while new software is capable of stripping out paid search ads.