Q3 Shows Steady Trends as Companies Ramp Up for the Holiday Rush
Marin Software just released our latest global online advertising trends report for Q3 2012. As with previous quarters, we built this report using the Marin Global Online Advertising Index, which includes over 1,800 advertisers and agencies that invest over $4.0 billion annually in biddable media through the Marin platform.
As noted in our mobile report earlier this year, we are seeing staggering growth around the adoption of smartphones and tablets for search advertising. We are well on our way to hitting our prediction that mobile devices will account for 25% of all paid search clicks on Google by December of this year.
There have also been a number of headlines around Facebook enhancing its advertising offerings, including: new ad formats, view-through metrics, mobile-specific targeting and a number of other features. We continue to see a focus on Facebook as marketers begin to explore this social channel further.
In the US, Google continued its search dominance by garnering 81% of US spend share and 79% of US click share while controlling 66.4% of overall US search volumes (according to Comscore). Despite falling behind in overall click share, Yahoo! and Bing are continuing to show solid growth in aggregate click volume.
At a geographic level, here are some other key findings from the US, UK and Eurozone:
- In the US, paid search click volume rose by 20% accompanied by a 21% increase in impression volumes, while CPCs decreased from $0.95 in Q3 2012 to $0.82 in Q3 2012
- UK advertisers saw paid search click volume and impressions remain relatively flat with both CPC and CTR seeing increases versus Q2 2012
- Both paid search click and impression volume rose by ~20% in the Eurozone; the average CPC rose from €0.27 in Q3 2011 to €0.34 in Q3 2012 while the CTR remained relatively flat
Read the full report with additional data and trends here.
