Spending and Pricing Trends Across Paid Search, Social Advertising, and Retail Media
Spending increased in March for half or more of Skai accounts in retail media and paid search. While some of this can be attributed to two more days than February, average daily spending was also up in both channels. Paid social spending grew in absolute terms but dipped by one percent per day, even as just under half of accounts spent more money in the channel.
Ad prices were more mixed. Social CPM grew 11% month-over-month, and retail media CPC was up 7%, while search CPC did not change from February. A majority of social accounts saw their CPM rise, compared to about half of retail media accounts and roughly one-third of search accounts experiencing higher CPC
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 – March 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.
Paid Search
Overall paid search spending grew 13% in March, while the average CPC stayed level. Average spending per day rose 5%.
- 50% of search accounts spent more in March than in February compared to 24% who spent less, and the average price of a click increased for 35% of accounts and decreased for 38%, 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 25% of all paid search accounts in the analysis. Another 45% showed no change in either spending levels OR the price per click.
Social Advertising
Overall, paid social spending increased 6% in March, while average CPM grew 11%. Average spending per day dipped 1%.
- 47% of social accounts spent more in March than in February, compared to 35% who spent less. The average price of one thousand impressions increased for 55% of accounts and decreased for 24%, 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 30% of all paid social accounts in the analysis. Another 35% showed no change in either spending levels OR the price per thousand impressions.
Retail Media
Overall, retail media spending grew 14% in March, while average CPC increased 7%. Average spending per day rose 6%.
- 59% of retail media accounts spent more in March than in February compared to 23% who spent less. The average price of a click increased for 48% of accounts and decreased for 17%, 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 35% of all retail media accounts in the analysis. Another 44% 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.
Please visit The Breakthrough and the Skai Research Center for ongoing insights, analysis, and interviews on all things related to digital advertising.
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