According to IgnitionOne’s “Global Advertising Report: Q4 2011,” mobile search ad spending in the U.S. saw a huge year-over-year increase in the fourth quarter. The report also found that the holiday season was kind to U.S. search advertising as a whole.
In the fourth quarter, year-over-year mobile search ad impressions were up 317 percent, while spending was up 269 percent. Mobile search ad spending accounted for 14.2 percent of total paid search budgets for retailers, up from 5.2 percent last year. On Black Friday, 24 percent of retail search ad spend went to mobile queries.
U.S. paid search spend grew 22.4 percent year-over-year in the fourth quarter, and grew 20.4 percent quarter-over-quarter. Impressions grew 20 percent year-over-year, clicks grew 34 percent and click-through rates (CTR) increased 12 percent.
Retail search spending rose 26 percent year-over-year in the fourth quarter, while impressions rose 42 percent, clicks rose 42 percent, transactions rose 67 percent and revenue rose 43 percent.
According to IgnitionOne, cost per click (CPC) dropped 8.6 percent on average year-over-year. CPC also declined 2.3 percent quarter-over-quarter in the fourth quarter of 2011.
Google held onto 81.8 percent of the U.S. search engine market in the fourth quarter, while Yahoo/Bing claimed 18.2 percent. Yahoo/Bing saw its year-over-year search spend grow more than Google’s in November and December.
In Europe, search spend increased 14 percent year-over-year in the fourth quarter, while CTR increased 19 percent.
Spending on display advertising increased 9.3 percent in the fourth quarter, while impressions rose 31.5 percent year-over-year. IgnitionOne notes that Google’s DoubleClick Ad Exchange got the entire increased budget and experienced a 105.5 percent increase in spending.
A separate report from Efficient Frontier revealed that Facebook spend share reached 2.7 percent of biddable online advertising spend in the fourth quarter. It also noted that search spend grew 14 percent year-over-year, with retail growing by 18 percent year-over-year and 40 percent quarter-over-quarter.
CPC declined 5 percent, thanks to the increase in mobile advertising, where clicks cost less.
Tablets accounted for 50 percent of mobile search spend and 50 percent of click share in the fourth quarter, according to Efficient Frontier.
Sources:
http://www.ignitionone.com/en/press/robust-retailer-investment-search-drives-strong-q4
http://www.efrontier.com/about-us/press/press-releases/global-q4-2011-digital-marketing-performance-report
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