Chris "Coz" Costello
Senior Director of Marketing Research @ Skai
Chris "Coz" Costello
Senior Director of Marketing Research @ Skai
You may already be familiar with Skai’s Quarterly Trends Report, where we draw upon one of the largest advertising performance datasets in digital marketing outside of the publishers themselves to describe the most important trends in key digital channels. For practitioners, keeping a pulse on the market and understanding what their peers are doing can be helpful to guide their own programs.
To augment those reports, we wanted to take a monthly snapshot that focuses on two questions: Are advertisers spending more this month compared to last month, and are they paying higher prices for their ads?
As with any benchmark information, your mileage may vary, but we hope this provides a bit more context for you as a marketer as you navigate the ups and downs of your program’s performance.
Methodology note. For the purpose of these monthly benchmarks, only Skai accounts with spend above a minimum threshold for the previous three months are included in this analysis.
Spending was up slightly in August across accounts.
Search CPC increased to a moderate degree with most account CPCs staying within 5% of the previous month’s costs.
The distribution of social spending skewed sharply towards higher social budgets in August, with nearly 50% of accounts spending at least 10% or more compared to July.
Ad prices were clearly one factor in the rise of overall budgets, with two-thirds of accounts paying at least 10% more per thousand impressions. Advertisers returning from the July boycott may have increased competition from month to month, driving up prices, while higher-priced political ad spending started to make more of an impact.
Ecommerce budgets were up, on average, compared to July, with increases of 10%-45% slightly more prevalent than staying within 10% of last month.
Ad prices for Ecommerce were up more than they were down on the month but mostly stayed the same, reinforcing the notion that much of the change in campaign budgets comes from volume.
Come back in September for our next monthly trends post. Until then, you can dive into more of our research via our Quarterly Trends Reports hub and our COVID-19 Marketing Resource Center.
And please visit the Skai blog and Research & Reports page for ongoing insights, analysis, and interviews on all things related to digital advertising.
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