Big Adword Growth Behind Us?

Has it Matured

[ffctas]

I have noticed a flatining of growth in both impressions and clicks (actually a drop over last year). However, click thru rates and conversions continue to improve.

We sell a niche product in a mature market. Is is it possbile we have already saturated the market? I have always wanted to spend as much as I could on adwords as long as conversions are profitable. Most of my top keywords are already in premium positions.

Has anyone else noticed similar pattern. What are the consequences and how are you dealing with it?

[poster_boy]

Has anyone else noticed similar pattern.

I have noticed a similar pattern. Posted about it here: [webmasterworld.com...]

What are the consequences and how are you dealing with it?

If I'm not getting more clicks from the same keywords, I have to aggressively add new keywords, test new markets, and (even moreso) optimize the heck out of each and every word.

[ffctas]

Looking at Google "Trends" and choosing very generic words such as weather, money, books and school, search volume has not increased since before 2004. This is clearly unscientific but goes against common thought.
One would think there would be some trend towards growth over this time. Is it possible that search growth, in general, is close to or at maturity?

[toddb]

Part of might be in smarter searchers. i know i rarely use one word searches as I need to be more specific to get what i want.

[mike_ppc]

It makes sense that some very general keywords maintained their number of searches, especially if they are not "selling".
On the other hand, I am sure that for certain "commercial" keywords searches have increased a lot.