Advertisers are shifting their budgets from paid search to display and mobile programmatic ads, as personalisation technology becomes more effective, according to new research.
The data, from Adobe’s Q4 2015 Digital Advertising Report, is based on anonymous and aggregated global data from Adobe Marketing Cloud.
Findings between Q4 ’14 and Q4 ’15 are based on 400+ billion digital ad impressions from search/social platforms (Google, Facebook, Yahoo, etc.) and consumer activity on 4,000+ branded sites across industries.
Adobe looked at the latest paid search trends, mobile spend patterns, Facebook vs. Google ad performance, and how digital advertising drove online retailer revenues over the Christmas period. Some key findings include:
Paid search momentum shows slowing growth
• Global paid search growth showed signs of slowing (12% spend growth in Q4 ‘14 to 3% spend growth in Q4 ‘15)
• Europe showed the largest decline of paid search spend growth compared to last year (17% YoY growth to 5% YoY growth), while North America which saw growth slow from 5% to 3%
Google growth: faster in North America, slower in Europe
• North America: Google’s paid search grew 4% vs. 3% YoY
• Europe growth slowed by 33% YoY (8% vs. 12% last year)
More money is being spent on mobile search and it’s generating more traffic
• Mobile spend helped to close the “mobile gap” and increase mobile traffic (+35% more clicks YoY)
• Mobile now accounts for 38% of search spend (+22% YoY), almost equal to mobile browsing at 41%
• Smartphones contribute most of the global growth (+51% YoY), while tablet share continues to shrink (down 9% YoY)
Strong competition between Facebook News Feed and Google Display Ad Network
• Heading into the Christmas shopping season, Google’s click-through-rate outpaced Facebook (+219% vs. +77% QoQ)
• Facebook’s click-through-rate lifted 36% YoY, driven by changes for selecting which posts from Page appear in News Feed
• Google’s click-through-rate increased 27% YoY, driven by contextual placement for display, auto conversion of text to image ads, and Audience Insights
Viewpoint from Meghan Falter, Digital Marketing Solutions Consultant, Adobe, said: “Over the past year, the focus from the advertiser’s side has shifted heavily towards audience-led advertising, in conjunction with programmatic solutions, so it’s no surprise to see Paid Search growth is slowing year over year. Paid ads are finally catching up to the personalisation and optimisation efforts businesses have been investing in for years. And, now that the technology has evolved to increasingly link up the full customer journey and deliver more relevant experiences, we’re seeing Search begin to plateau and Display on the rise. The potential for audience-focused growth in this area is abundant.”
“With the increasing growth of mobile spend, marketers and businesses are eagerly attempting to shift their focus to where their customers are and better understand how to engage with them there successfully. There is plenty of room for ongoing innovation in mobile marketing technology, so we expect to see increasing investment in mobile over the next few years.”