Reports Show Paid Search Spend Is Up Over Last Year

Second quarter reports coming out from the large search marketing firms this week point to continued growth in paid search investment in the US and globally. The reports also underscore the increasing influence of mobile and image-based product ads on growth.

RKG’s analysis of the US search market, based on its client portfolio, which skews retail, showed Q2 spend increased by 23 percent year-over-year, with investments on both Google and Bing rising.

Google spend grew 24 percent year-over-year with a 13 percent increase in click volume and CPCs rising by 10 percent. Bing Ads spend rose by 19 percent year-over-year with a 22 percent increase in click volume. Bing Ads CPCs fell 3 percent, however, largely as a result of increasing mobile click volume where CPCs continue to be discounted on both platforms.

Source: RKG Digital Marketing Report Q2 2014

Interestingly, this marked the first quarter that smartphone paid click share surpassed tablets. Tablet share remained flat at 18 percent, while smartphones saw click share rise from 14 percent in 2013 to 19 percent in Q2 2014.

RKG, which manages a huge volume of product ads for its retail clients, saw spend on product ads increase 72 percent over last year. Text ad spending, in contrast, rose just 6 percent versus last year. RKG also reported higher ROI from Google Product Listing Ads and Bing Ads’ relatively new Product Ads than text ads on either platform.

With a global outlook, Covario’s quarterly report showed paid search spend rose 21 percent year-over-year. The Americas lead growth with a 31 percent year-over-year increase. Europe, the Middle East and Africa saw modest 3 percent gains for the year, though spend increased 5 percent from the previous quarter. In the Asia/Pacific region, year-over-year growth was just 1 percent, but this region also saw stronger quarter-over-quarter growth at 6 percent.

Source: Covario Quarterly Global Paid Search Spend Analysis (Q2/2014)

CPCs globally rose 12 percent year-over-year, though they were flat on mobile devices, according to Covario. An increase in mobile click volume made up for lagging CPCs, however. Mobile search spend shot up 98 percent year-over-year and 6 percent versus Q1.

Today, Adobe issued its report on global search spend growth among its client base increased 9 percent year-over-year, driven by higher engagement rates and click volume. Google’s CPC ticked up 4 percent, while CPCs on Bing fell 6 percent year-over-year, reports Adobe.

We’ll see how closely the agencies’ performance lines up with Google’s own data when it reports quarterly earnings after the market closes tomorrow, July 17. Microsoft reports earnings on July 22.