Monthly Paid Media Spend Snapshot – August 2022

Spending and Pricing Trends Across Paid Search, Social Advertising, and Retail Media

With Amazon Prime Day in the rearview mirror, more than half of Retail Media advertisers saw both their budgets and their ad prices decrease by at least 10% in August.

Paid social ad prices stayed level from month-to-month, with a slight increase in overall spending then coming from additional impression volume. Paid search saw very little change last month, with spending staying level and cost-per-click up just 2% compared to July.

How do you measure up? Check out these benchmarks to see if your programs are on par with your industry peers or if you’re ahead 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 Paid Media Spend Snapshot – August 2022

Methodology: For these benchmarks, only Skai accounts with spend above a minimum threshold for the previous three months are included. As of April 2022, spending benchmarks use average daily spending to control for longer and shorter months. Please note that the selection criteria used here are different from the Skai Quarterly Trends Report, which can sometimes lead to different results between the two analyses.

Paid Search spending

Overall, average daily spending in paid search did not change from July to August.

• 31% of paid search accounts spent +10% or more per day in August versus July, compared to 33% who spent -10% or less (-2% differential)
• 5% of accounts spent +50% or more per day in August versus July, compared to 6% of accounts spending -50% or less (-1% differential)

Paid Search CPCs

Overall, the average cost of a click in paid search advertising rose 2% from July to August.

• 33% of paid search accounts paid +10% or more per click in August versus July, compared to 22% who paid -10% or less (+11% differential)
• 4% of accounts paid +50% or more per click in August versus July, compared to % of accounts paying -50% or less (+4% differential)

Social Advertising spending

Overall, average daily spending in social advertising increased 5% from July to August.

• 33% of paid social accounts spent +10% or more per day in August versus July, compared to 43% who spent -10% or less (-10% differential)
• 14% of accounts spent +50% or more per day in August versus July, compared to 15% of accounts spending -50% or less (-1% differential)

Social Advertising CPMs

Overall, the average cost of a thousand impressions in social advertising did not change from July to August.

• 27% of paid social accounts paid +10% or more per thousand impressions in August versus July, compared to 31% who paid -10% or less (-4% differential)
• 4% of accounts paid +50% or more per thousand impressions in August versus July, compared to 2% of accounts paying -50% or less (+2% differential)

Retail Media spending

Overall, average daily spending in retail media advertising dropped 23% from July to August.

• 19% of retail media advertising accounts spent +10% or more per day in August versus July, compared to 58% who spent -10% or less (-39% differential)
• 7% of accounts spent +50% or more per day in August versus July, compared to 14% of accounts spending -50% or less (-7% differential)

Retail Media CPCs

Overall, the average cost of a click in retail media advertising decreased 12% from July to August.

• 16% of retail media advertising accounts paid +10% or more per click in August versus July, compared to 51% who paid -10% or less (-35% differential)
• 1% of accounts paid +50% or more per click in August compared to July, versus 2% of accounts paying -50% or less (-1% differential)

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.

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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