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RKG Releases Digital Marketing Report [Professional Services Close - Up](Professional Services Close - Up Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) RKG released its Digital Marketing Report, which covers Q3 2014 trends for paid search, SEO, product ads, social media, display advertising, and comparison shopping engines. According to a company release, the third quarter of 2014 saw continued growth in paid search spending, as Google saw a 27 percent increase and Bing saw a 24 percent increase in ad spend over this time last year. Ad spend on the Facebook Exchange was also up 30 percent for the quarter. As advertisers head into the holiday season on a high note, mobile devices and product ads continue to drive search growth, while social media traffic share continues to vary by site. Mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets, now see 38 percent share of both paid and organic search traffic. 42 percent of social media driven site visits came on mobile devices, a 13 point increase from this quarter last year. Smartphone ad spend grew 117 percent year-over-year as advertisers continue to invest in this ad format. Smartphone revenue-per-click is still 66 percent lower than desktop. Cross-device conversion estimates from Google show that smartphones should receive 17 percent more conversions than the total captured by single-device tracking, though factoring in cross- device conversions only closes the RPC gap between smartphones and desktops slightly. Recent releases of iOS 8 and the iPhone 6 may have an impact on smartphone performance, as early data shows that iPhone 6 users are converting at a higher rate than users with earlier models. Image-based product ads, which consist of Google's Product Listing Ads and Bing's Product Ads, continue to drive paid search growth for retailers. Ad spend for product ads increased by 73 percent over this quarter last year, while text ad spend rose by just 15 percent. On Google, PLAs continue to compare favorably to text ads, with higher conversion rates and a lower average cost-per- click. On Bing, Product Ads continue to gain traffic share, reaching 10 percent of non-brand spend in the first year since their release. Among retailers, PLA share of Google click traffic rose to 27 percent, compared to 22 percent in this quarter last year. In 2013, PLA traffic share increased sharply in Q4, a trend that we may see again this holiday season, as the image format of these ads often makes them more attractive to shoppers. Recently Google announced that PLAs are now eligible to show on retail and commerce sites on the Google Search Network, which may also further growth, although the Search Network represents a small percentage of overall Google traffic. Advertiser spending on the Facebook Exchange increased 30 percent from Q3 of 2013, as cost-per-click rose by 10 percent. A new ad layout released in Q2 likely drove up CPCs, as available ad space decreased and competition rose. Despite this, the share of all site visits generated by social media sites increased only slightly from last year, from 2 percent to 2.2 percent. Facebook continues to produce a majority of social media visits, at 53 percent, though it has lost ground to Pinterest, which now contributes 18 percent of all social media visits on average. These figures may vary widely for individual sites, as demographics and industry continue to have a strong impact on social media contribution. Highlights: Paid Search -Q3 paid search spending on Google increased 27 percent Y/Y, a slight acceleration from Q2. This was driven mostly by an 18 percent Y/Y increase in click volume, though cost-per-click (CPC) also increased by 8 percent Y/Y. -Search spending for Bing Ads rose 24 percent Y/Y, driven entirely by an increase in click volume as there was no movement in average CPC. A rise in mobile traffic helped to both drive the increase in volume as well as keep CPC stagnant. -Google Product Listing Ads and Bing Product Ads spend rose a combined 73 percent Y/Y, just above Q2 Y/Y growth rate. 27 percent of all Google search clicks came from PLAs. -Smartphones and tablets combined to account for 38 percent of paid search traffic, up from 30 percent in Q3 2013. Spend share for smartphone and tablet devices was 28 percent. Organic Search and Social -32 percent of all Q3 2014 site visits came from organic search, down from 34 percent in Q3 2013. Optimizations by search engines to make paid ads more appealing continue to drive traffic away from organic results. -Organic search click share from smartphones and tablets rose to 38 percent in Q3, up from 27 percent a year earlier. iPhone, iPad, and Android device organic traffic share all rose Y/Y. Comparison Shopping Engines -Amazon's Product Ads' CSE spend share dropped 10 points Y/Y on the heels of their pushing some advertisers out of the product in Q2. -Following two quarters of decline relative to Google PLAs, Amazon Product Ads delivered 11 percent as much revenue as PLAs in Q3 for advertisers on both platforms, a return to Q4 2013 levels. Display Advertising -Google Display Network share of total Google investment increased from 6 percent in Q2 to 8 percent in Q3 for advertisers actively advertising on the GDN. -FBX spend was up 30 percent Y/Y in Q3, while average CPC increased 10 percent. The larger right hand rail format introduced in Q2 has resulted in increased competition due to fewer ad units and more players in the space. RKG is a search and digital marketing agency. ((Comments on this story may be sent to [email protected])) (c) 2014 ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved. |