Monthly Paid Media Spend Snapshot – October 2022

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

The Amazon Prime Day Early Access event in October let to ad prices rising for 39% of retail media accounts, and spend rising for 46%.

Search ad prices continue to drop, down 10% overall from September and at least 10% lower for a third of paid search accounts, leading to a 4% decrease in average daily spend in the channel. Daily spend was also down 4% for paid social accounts on a comparable drop in impressions, as overall CPM remained unchanged.

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 – October 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 spend 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 from the two analyses.

Paid Search spending

Overall, average daily spending in paid search dropped 4% from September to October.

• 26% of paid search accounts spent +10% or more per day in October versus September, compared to 42% who spent -10% or less (-16% differential)
• 7% of accounts spent +50% or more per day in October versus September, compared to 7% of accounts spending -50% or less (zero differential)

Paid Search CPCs

Overall, the average cost of a click in paid search advertising decreased 10% from September to October.

• 26% of paid search accounts paid +10% or more per click in October versus September, compared to 34% who paid -10% or less (-8% differential)
• 4% of accounts paid +50% or more per click in October versus September, compared to 1% of accounts paying -50% or less (+3% differential)

Social Advertising spending

Overall, average daily spending in social advertising dropped 4% from September to October.

• 33% of paid social accounts spent +10% or more per day in October versus September, compared to 48% who spent -10% or less (-15% differential)
• 12% of accounts spent +50% or more per day in October versus September, compared to 11% 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 September to October.

• 33% of paid social accounts paid +10% or more per thousand impressions in October versus September, compared to 32% who paid -10% or less (+1% differential)
• 2% of accounts paid +50% or more per thousand impressions in October versus September, compared to 2% of accounts paying -50% or less (zero differential)

Retail Media spending

Overall, average daily spending in retail media advertising increased 10% from September to October.

• 46% of retail media advertising accounts spent +10% or more per day in October versus September, compared to 29% who spent -10% or less (+17% differential)
• 15% of accounts spent +50% or more per day in October versus September, compared to 5% of accounts spending -50% or less (+10% differential)

Retail Media CPCs

Overall, the average cost of a click in retail media advertising rose 6% from September to October.

• 39% of retail media advertising accounts paid +10% or more per click in October versus September, compared to 19% who paid -10% or less (+20% differential)
• 5% of accounts paid +50% or more per click in October compared to September, versus 0% of accounts paying -50% or less (+5% 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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