Spending and Pricing Trends Across Paid Search, Social Advertising, and Retail Media
Spending levels increased across all major digital channels in November, with the “Cyber 5” as a major catalyst for spending and ad prices. Paid social saw the most significant month-over-month (MoM) budget increase, rising 37%, paid search grew 36%, and retail media increased 29% over October. Despite having a lower overall growth rate, a higher percentage of retail media accounts increased spending MoM than the other two channels.
The average CPM for paid social spiked by 19%, while paid social click prices grew by 15%. The average CPC for retail media only increased by 3%. At least half of the accounts in each channel saw an increase in ad prices, led by social media, where 77% of advertisers had prices rise by at least 5%.
How do you measure up? Check out these benchmarks to see if your programs are on par with your industry peers, 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 Industry Snapshot – November 2023
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 36% in November, while average CPC increased 15%. Average spending per day rose 40%.
- 52% of search accounts spent more in November than October compared to 28% who spent less, and the average price of a click increased for 56% of accounts and decreased for 25%, 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 spend and CPC increased, which comprised 38% of all paid search accounts in the analysis. Another 34% showed no change in either spending levels OR the price per click.
Social Advertising
Overall, paid social spending increased 37% in November, while average CPM grew 19%. Average spending per day rose 42%.
- 48% of social accounts spent more in November than in October, compared to 34% who spent less, and the average price of one thousand impressions increased for 77% of accounts and decreased for 13%, 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 38% of all paid social accounts in the analysis. Another 26% showed no change in either spending levels OR the price per thousand impressions.
Retail Media
Retail media spending grew 29% in November, while average CPC increased 3%. Average spending per day rose 34%.
- 59% of retail media accounts spent more in November than in October, compared to 28% who spent less, and the average price of a click increased for 50% of accounts and decreased by 19%, 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 36% of all retail media accounts in the analysis. Another 38% 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 Breakthrough and the Skai Research Center for ongoing insights, analysis, and interviews on all things related to digital advertising.
