Spending and Pricing Trends Across Paid Search, Social Advertising, and Retail Media
April recouped some of March’s gains in spending across channels. Overall spending levels declined in retail media, paid search, and paid social by 5%, 5%, and 8%, respectively, while average daily spending dropped more modestly in retail media (-2%) and paid search (-1%).
Retail media CPC grew by 1 percent over last month, while paid search CPC was flat, and paid social CPM dipped by 9%, all but erasing the higher CPMs from last month.
How do you measure up? Check out these benchmarks to see if your programs are on par with your industry peers, ahead of the curve, or behind the curve.
This is a continuation of our monthly paid media snapshot series. As with any benchmark, 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.
Monthly Industry Snapshot – April 2024
Methodology: Only Skai accounts with spend above a minimum threshold for the previous three months are included in these benchmarks. Please note that the selection criteria used here differ from the Skai Quarterly Trends Report and may not be consistent with those results in all cases. Starting in November 2023, paid social data has been expanded to include Meta, Pinterest, TikTok, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
How to read these charts
Accounts are divided into segments based on increases or decreases of at least 5% in monthly spending and CPC for retail media and paid search or CPM for paid social. Those segments are then plotted on a bubble chart where the x-axis represents the month-over-month (MoM) percent change in pricing for that segment, and the y-axis is the MoM percent change in total spending. Bubble size represents the percent of total Skai accounts.
The diagonal line indicates spending changes that are completely described by the change in pricing. Bubbles above the diagonal mean that ad volume—clicks for retail media and paid search, impressions for paid social—grew faster than pricing. In contrast, bubbles below the diagonal mean that volume grew slower.
Retail Media
Retail media spending decreased 5% in April, while average CPC increased 1%. Average spending per day dipped 2%.
- 32% of retail media accounts spent more in April than in March, compared to 48% who spent less. The average price of a click increased for 31% of accounts and decreased for 30%, with the remaining share for each metric seeing no change.
- Of the segments that showed movement in both spending and pricing, the largest was where both spending and CPC decreased, which comprised 22% of all retail media accounts in the analysis. Another 50% showed no change in either spending levels OR the price per click.
Paid Search
Overall paid search spending decreased 5% in April, while the average CPC stayed level. Average spending per day dipped 1%.
- 31% of search accounts spent more in April than in March, compared to 38% who spent less. The average price of a click increased for 36% of accounts and decreased for 34%, with the remaining share for each metric seeing no change.
- Of the segments that showed movement in both spending and pricing, the largest was where both spending and CPC decreased, which comprised 20% of all paid search accounts in the analysis. Another 50% showed no change in either spending levels OR the price per click.
Social Advertising
Overall, paid social spending dropped 8% in April, while average CPM decreased 9%. Average spending per day dipped 5%.
- 39% of social accounts spent more in April than March, compared to 45% who spent less. The average price of one thousand impressions increased for 37% of accounts and decreased for 34%, with the remaining share for each metric seeing no change.
- Of the segments that showed movement in spending and pricing, the largest was where both spending and CPM increased, comprising 21% of all paid social accounts in the analysis. Another 37% showed no change in either spending levels OR the price per thousand impressions.
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Check out more resources from Skai
Come back next month for the most up-to-date data. Until then, you can dive into more of our research via our Quarterly Trends Reports hub.
Please visit The Breakthrough and the Skai Research Center for ongoing insights, analysis, and interviews on all things related to digital advertising.
