search ads
How Are Google’s Product Listing Ads Performing?
source: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/How-Googles-Product-Listing-Ads-Performing/1010185
Costs of PLAs starting to rise
Google’s Product Listing Ads (PLAs), which are enhanced search ads that include features such as price and image, received significant attention from marketers during the 2012 holiday season, according to a Marin Software study of advertisers who had made paid search buys through the Marin platform.
However, since December 2012, PLAs’ share of search ads has declined. In July 2013, 1.05% of text ads worldwide were PLAs, compared to 1.22% just two months earlier. This is likely to change as the 2013 holiday shopping season kicks into gear, and retailers increasingly opt for richer search ads.
While there has been some falloff in advertiser interest in the ads, the outlook for PLAs is good given that the ads do seem to garner higher clickthrough rates (CTRs) every month. In July 2013, the average CTR of these ads reached 1.66%, up from 1.00% in January 2012. The study specifically called out mobile shopping as a prime contributor to these increased clicks.
Costs per click are reaching progressively higher, though, up to $1.59 in July 2013, compared to $1.04 in July 2012. Rising prices may be encouraging advertisers to be more strategic in their PLA buys.
Comparing the share of clicks on PLAs vs. text ads, Marin Software found that while July saw a slight dropoff in clicks on the enhanced search ads, the overall trend seems to be toward more PLA clicks. PLAs took a 2.21% share of clicks in July 2013, still nearly double the 1.15% share PLAs garnered in th! e previous July.
The holiday shopping season seems to be when the greatest percentage of spending outlays go toward PLAs compared with text ads.
The percentage spent on PLAs remained below 2% between January through October 2012, and then jumped during the November and December 2012 shopping season. After the holidays, the share devoted to PLAs came down considerably but still stayed above 2%, and reached 303% in June 2013.
drag2share: How Mobile Native Ads Are Turning The Digital Ad Industry On Its Head
The advertising industry can’t quite seem to figure out how to advertise effectively to audiences on smartphones and tablets.
Many mobile ads are simply banner or search ads bought inadvertently as advertisers aim for broad digital audiences.
Native ads are being touted as the new formats that will bring real depth and differentiation to the mobile ad market.
But what exactly is a native ad on mobile? Is it just an ad unit that was designed to show on a mobile device?
US Mobile Ad Spending, Search is Largest Share
source: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Mobile-Gains-Greater-Share-of-Search-Display-Spending/1010148
Digital ad spending continues to shift from desktop to mobile devices, according to eMarketer’s latest estimates on US ad spending.
Search has already undergone a dramatic shift in spending toward mobile, which will continue into the future. In 2010, just 2.1% of all digital search ad dollars were spent on mobile devices. This year, that share will reach 22.1%, and by 2017, eMarketer expects, US advertisers will spend 59.6% of all digital search dollars on mobile.
Search is still king of the US digital ad spending market, but its hold on the crown is getting shakier each year. eMarketer’s latest forecast of US ad spending, including digital ad formats, pegs search ad spending at $19.6 billion this year. That includes search ads on desktop and laptop computers as well as mobile phones, tablets and other connected devices.
Digital display spending is still lower, at an expected $17.6 billion this year, including outlays on banners, video, rich media, sponsorships and other display formats, like Facebook’s Sponsored Stories or Twitter’s Promoted Tweets. Next year, combined spending on display formats will reach $20.6 billion, close to search’s expected $21.6 billion in spending, and by 2015 display will pull ahead.
drag2share: The Emergence Of Native Ads On Mobile, And How They’re Turning Mobile Advertising On Its Head
We are in the post-PC era, and soon billions of consumers will be carrying around Internet-connected mobile devices for up to 16 hours a day. Mobile audiences have exploded as a result.
The advertising industry can’t quite seem to figure out how to advertise effectively to these audiences. Many mobile ads are simply banner or search ads bought inadvertently as advertisers aim for digital audiences.
Native ads are being touted as the new formats that will bring real depth and differentiation to the mobile ad market.
But what exactly is a native ad on mobile? Is it just an ad unit that was designed to show on a mobile device?
In a new report from BI Intelligence on native ads and native ads on mobile, we interview a half-dozen industry experts, we explain away the confusion surrounding native mobile ads, we categorize the various types of native ads that have gained traction on mobile, and we examine the growing role played by publishers and agencies in nurturing the native-mobile ecosystem and upending the traditional banner ad.
Gmail Adds Email Ads Sponsored Emails In Other Words Spam
Screenshot of Gmail’s new inbox ads
Google has introduced new ads to Gmail that can be best described as “sponsored emails.” Aside from the fact that the ads are marked as such and colored differently from regular Gmail messages (similar to how Google distinguishes some search ads), the aesthetic of these ads — which only appear in the “promotions” tab — differ little from standard emails and function similarly, allowing users store them for later or forward to others.
Advertisers Double Down on Mobile Paid Search – eMarketer
source: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Advertisers-Double-Down-on-Mobile-Paid-Search/1010042
Search advertisers must meet consumers where they conduct their web activity
As smartphones and tablets play an increasingly dominant role in consumers’ daily web activities, advertisers are putting more dollars to paid search ads on the devices. According to Q2 2013 research from digital marketing solutions company IgnitionOne, US mobile paid search spend more than doubled year over year on both smartphones and tablets. By comparison, total search spend was up only 7% over Q2 2012.
Tablets saw a slightly bigger bump in spending and delivered impressions, but smartphones grew more robustly in terms of clicks, as more users tapped on paid search links on their phones. In keeping with this, the cost-per-click (CPC) on smartphones got cheaper, down by 13%, while tablets’ CPCs were up 13%.
drag2share: Search Is Still The Main Source Of Mobile Ad Revenue
Globally, mobile ad revenues were up an impressive 83% last year, according to a new report from IAB and IHS.
But the bulk of mobile revenue is still being driven by a desktop-based innovation, the search engine. Search accounted for 53% of global mobile ad revenues in 2012. That share is actually up slightly from 51% in 2011.
(On the desktop, search only accounted for a 46% share of ad revenue in 2012.)
In some regions the share controlled by search is even more pronounced. In the the most developed mobile markets, Western Europe and North America, search accounted for 60% and 56% of mobile ad revenue, respectively.
Practically speaking, this means that Google accounts for a plurality, if not an outright majority, of mobile ad revenue. According to StatCounter, Google had a 94% mobile search market share in June.
However, given the broader fast-paced expansion in the mobile ad market, the display portion is still experiencing robust growth, even as it slipped relative to search.
It’s worth noting that mobile hasn’t fully broken out as a separate, distinct ad market. Many mobile ads — including search ads and banner ads — are simply desktop ads that show up on your mobile device. These reflect changing consum! er usage habits, but not yet a mature market with a depth of native ad formats.
Facebook Ads Still Lag Paid Search In Click-Through Rates
Source: https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/welcome
The telecommunications and publishing industries enjoy the highest average click-through rates on their Facebook ads, according to a new report from Salesforce and Social.com.
Telecom had the best-performing Facebook ads with a CTR of .92%. Ads from the publishing industry enjoyed a CTR of .8%.
The worst-performing ads came from deals, advertising, gaming, and at the bottom of the heap — dating service ads, which had a .027% CTR. The low numbers are a sign that consumers are leery of these industries, and may consider them spammy.
By comparison, paid search ads average CTRs of 1% to 5% for large consumer brands, according to research conducted by former Omnicom Chief Digital Officer Dr. Augustine Fou in March 2013.
The Salesforce and Social.com report on Facebook ads was based on 1 million ad units and 114 billion impressions shown in 25 countries between Jan. 1 and March 31, 2013.
Local Searches On Smartphones Lead To The Most Walk-In Customers
Source: https://intelligence.businessinsider.com/welcome
People who conduct a successful local search on their smartphone are much more likely to make an in-store visit than PC and tablet users, according to a recent Neustar Localeze survey.
Perhaps surprisingly, especially since there are so many click-to-call search ads floating around the mobile Web, smartphone users are actually more likely to contact a business online after completing a local search, while tablet and PC users prefer to contact a business over the telephone.
The 3,000-person survey also found that overall conversion rates are higher among mobile users, whether they contacted a local business online, over the phone, or in-person
An impressive 78% of them ended up making a purchase. Similarly, 77% of tablet users converted into buyers, whereas only 59% of PC users did.
When it comes to performing additional research on a product or service after an initial local business search, tablets lead. This supports previous studies which found that people prefer to conduct more complex activities— such as browsing social networks, reading, and writing — on their tablet than on their smartphone. Also, probably due to this habit of conducting additional research before buying, tablet users tend to spend slightly more on a purchase.
The Neustar Localeze Local Search Usage Study was conducted in partnership with comScore and 15 Miles.
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drag2share: How Smartphones are Disrupting the Internets Biggest Business
Search — the very cornerstone of the Web — has begun to show signs of decline on desktops and laptops.
Meanwhile, search is surging on smartphones and tablets. Mobile searches are quickly becoming the main way in which consumers find everything they need — whether it’s information, services, or physical and digital goods.
That means there’s a great opportunity, but also that search has more work to do. There are kinks to figure out in areas ranging from app discovery to tracking the effectiveness of local search ads.
Digital Consigliere
Dr. Augustine Fou is Digital Consigliere to marketing executives, advising them on digital strategy and Unified Marketing(tm). Dr Fou has over 17 years of in-the-trenches, hands-on experience, which enables him to provide objective, in-depth assessments of their current marketing programs and recommendations for improving business impact and ROI using digital insights.
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