Search Advertising Trends in Q1

April 18, 2014

This article is included in these additional categories:

Connected Device Comparisons | Digital | Mobile Phone | Paid Search | Return on Investment | Social Media | Tablet

MC-Search-Ad-Trends-in-Q1-2014-Apr2014An array of research has been released recently looking at paid search trends during the first quarter of the year, from the likes of IgnitionOne, RKG [download page], The Search Agency [download page], Covario [download page] and Kenshoo. While they all use different client sample sets – and thus arrive at different conclusions – certain trends can be gleaned that appear consistent across the reports: spending is up (particularly on mobile), as are click-through rates. Costs-per-click are also slowly rising, per the report, although trends in impression volume appear to be more reliant on the individual client set.

Following are some interesting highlights from the reports not covered in the above chart:

  • Tablets captured 58% of mobile search spending in Q1, versus 42% for smartphones (IgnitionOne);
  • Mobile accounts for 28% of all search impressions, and is projected to reach 40% by the end of this year (The Search Agency);
  • CPCs are as high on tablets ($0.93) as they are on desktops ($0.94), per The Search Agency;
  • Smartphones (18%) and tablets (18%) together generated 36% of search ad clicks in Q1 (RKG);
  • Google returned 33% higher revenue per click for advertisers than Bing Ads (RKG);
  • PLAs, which accounted for 29% of Google paid search clicks for retailers, showed an ROI 14% better than comparable non-brand text ads (RKG);
  • Baidu accounted for about 8% of global search ad spend, 7% of impressions, and an out-sized 24% of clicks (Covario);
  • Advertiser revenue from search advertising grew by 12% year-over-year, while shooting up 191% for social advertising (Kenshoo); and
  • Social ad impressions grew 39% year-over-year, although click-through rates were just 0.1%, down 27% year-over-year.

Finally, a new study [download page] from Marin Software fielded among more than 200 enterprise advertisers found that advertisers have 68% higher revenue per conversion from their search advertising campaigns when those are managed with their social ad campaigns.

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