Monthly Paid Media Spend Snapshot – August 2023

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

Two-thirds of retail media advertisers spent less in August than in July, a mirror image of the share who spent more in July for Amazon Prime Day, with total spending down 26% in the channel. Meanwhile, social spending picked up considerable steam with 21% growth from July to August while paid search showed a modest 2% improvement.

Social CPM increased 10% from July to August, contributing to the corresponding spending increase. Retail media CPC drove the spending change in that channel in the other direction, with ad prices down 12%. Search ad prices landed slightly on the higher side, with CPC up 4%.

How do you measure up? Check out these benchmarks to see if your programs are on par with your industry peers or are 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 2023

Methodology: For these benchmarks, only Skai accounts with spend above a minimum threshold for the previous three months are included. Starting with the January 2023 release, spending benchmarks will once again use total monthly spend to ensure consistency across chart segments. Please note that the selection criteria used here are different from the Skai Quarterly Trends Report, and as a result may not be consistent with those results in all cases.

How to read these charts.

Accounts are divided into four 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, while bubbles below the diagonal mean that volume grew slower.

Paid Search 

Overall paid search spending grew 2% in August, while average CPC increased 4%. Average spending per day rose 2%.

• 35% of search accounts spent more in August than in July compared to 37% who spent less, and the average price of a click increased for 35% of accounts and decreased for 31%, 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 increased, which comprised 21% of all paid search accounts in the analysis. Another 47% showed no change in either spending levels OR the price per click.

Social Advertising

Overall, paid social spending increased 21% in August, while average CPM grew 10%. Average spending per day rose 21%.

• 45% of social accounts spent more in August than in July compared to 42% who spent less, and the average price of one thousand impressions increased for 39% 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 CPM increased, which comprised 21% of all paid social accounts in the analysis. Another 40% showed no change in either spending levels OR the price per thousand impressions.

Retail Media 

Overall, retail media spending decreased 26% in August, while average CPC dropped 12%. Average spending per day dipped 26%.

• 20% of retail media accounts spent more in August than in July, compared to 67% who spent less, and the average price of a click increased for 17% of accounts and decreased for 55%, 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 45% of all retail media accounts in the analysis. Another 35% showed no change in either spending levels OR the price per click.

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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