Advanced Television

Smartphones, tablets take 37% of Google clicks

October 17, 2013

The Search Agency, a global online marketing firm, has released its quarterly State of Paid Search Report, which found that Q3 saw strong growth in impressions, clicks and advertiser spend across Google, Bing and Yahoo. In addition, mobile continues to gain market share over desktop, with one-third of Google’s clicks coming from mobile and tablet devices. Impressions increased 37.1 per cent while clicks grew 16.2 per cent and advertiser spend increased 23.1 per cent year-over-year.

“In Q3, we continue to observe consumers migrating toward smartphone and tablet devices,” said Keith Wilson, vice president of agency products at The Search Agency. “With Enhanced Campaigns rolled out and Google’s cross-device estimated conversions announcement, marketers must adapt to these new tool sets to understand how to connect with today and tomorrow’s consumer.”

Additional findings include:
– Paid search spend increased 23 per cent YoY
The quarter saw a strong growth in overall search activity, with impressions, clicks and advertising spend all increasing. Clicks on Bing grew 20.9 per cent compared with Google’s growth at 15.3 per cent YoY.

– CPCs are on the rise
Average Cost Per Click (CPC) increased on both Bing and Google in Q3, rising 19.6 and 3.5 per cent respectively, but Google’s CPC has fallen by 1.3 per cent QoQ while Bing was up .9 per cent. Bing also saw double-digit growth in CPCs across all three device types, with the largest growth occurring on smartphones, which increased by 25.2 per cent YoY. Google also saw CPC growth on all three device types, with the largest growth in tablets at 14.2 per cent.

– On mobile devices, Google is King
Google’s distribution of clicks continues to shift from desktops to smartphones and tablets, with mobile devices making up more than one-third of their clicks in Q3. Bing’s click distribution remained largely unchanged with less than 18 per cent of clicks coming from smartphones and tablets.

– Smartphones and tablets remain strong
Consumers increased click volume on smartphones increased by over 50 per cent, while volume on tablets increased by 63.4 per cent YoY. And despite a 10.4 per cent drop in smartphone CPC, total advertiser spend on smartphones was up 68 per cent YoY. Total spend on tablets went up 87.6 per cent YoY..

Categories: Articles, Consumer Behaviour, Equipment, Mobile, Portable Media, Research