Google spending growth stable through enhanced campaigns transition

CHARLOTTESVILLE: RKG, a leading search and digital marketing agency, has released its Digital Marketing Report covering the third quarter of 2013. Across its client base, which includes over 40 of the top 500 online retailers, RKG found that Google search spending growth was stable at 18 per cent year-over-year, despite advertisers reducing average smartphone cost-per-click (CPC) in conjunction with the transition to Google's new Enhanced Campaign model.

RKG has consistently shown a wide range in the value of ad clicks across device types, with smartphones generating an average revenue-per-click that was 74 per cent lower than desktops in Q3. Utilizing RKG's upgraded proprietary Adaptive Bid Management technology, and taking advantage of Enhanced Campaigns' improved ability to capture long-tail traffic, RKG advertisers were able to hit more demanding ROI targets for mobile, while maintaining traffic levels.

For the full third quarter, tablets and smartphones combined to generate 30 per cent of search ad clicks, up from 28 per cent in the prior quarter. With smartphone CPCs reduced from 60 per cent of desktop levels to 35 per cent , mobile spending share was flat from Q2 to Q3 at 24 per cent .

While mobile continues to drive the bulk of search volume growth, with smartphone and tablet spending up 66 per cent and 79 per cent Y/Y on Google respectively, advertisers reinvested gains from their mobile ROI improvement back into desktop, which saw spending growth jump from 1 per cent in Q2 to 10 per cent in Q3.

As marketers head into the all-important holiday season, relevant learnings are to:

1.  Revisit your mobile strategy to invest smartly. New mobile opportunities with Enhanced Campaigns are paying off but you must adjust your strategy to capture better performing mobile traffic.

2. Have an air-tight Product Listing Ad (PLA) strategy. If you're a retailer and are not leveraging PLAs, you should be. In Q3 alone, Google PLAs drove 35 per cent of non-brand search clicks.

3. With Google's change to secure search, query data is becoming entirely "not provided". This comes at a critical time for marketers, find solutions - like RKG Blueprint - that can help surface "not provided" query data and help continue to inform your SEO strategy.

For more findings, download the full report at:

http://resources.rimmkaufman.com/RKG-DMR-Q3-2013.html