Skai Q2 2019 – The latest Quarterly Trend Report is now live. See what happened with regards to spend and performance across Search, Social, and Ecommerce advertising from one of the most trusted sources of advertising industry benchmarks.
- Download the free Skai Q2 2019 Quarterly Trends Report today!
- Watch the webinar recording
- Download the webinar slides
- View the interactive infographic
Q2 might be the most productive quarter of the year for most marketers. Or at least the one with the fewest distractions.
The first half of Q1 is typically spent getting back into the swing of things after a busy Q4 and holiday breaks. It often takes until late Q1 for marketers to wrap up everything they pushed off at the end of the previous quarter, including finalizing budgets for the new year.
Then there’s Q3, which is all about getting ready for Q4. And well, Q4 is a chaotic, all-hands-on-deck grind that many brands need to be big in order to have a successful year.
Q2 is a valuable time for gathering insights into industry trends and understanding how advertiser KPIs and budgets are shaping up for the year. With end-of-the-year holiday season planning in full swing by July and August, marketers can check to see if there are any last-minute insights they can use to guide their final Q4 plans.
This edition of the Skai Quarterly Trends Report represents the analysis of over $5.5 billion in annualized marketer spend and continues to be one of the most well-respected datasets by those who follow advertising performance closely. With over 500 billion impressions and 13 billion clicks analyzed, there are many great insights about what’s happening in the digital advertising industry on a macro level.
4 Key Insights from the Skai Q2 2019 Quarterly Trends Report (QTR)
Ecommerce Channel Ads (ECA) in Q2 were almost as big as Q4
Advertisers who ran ECA—primarily led by Amazon Advertising—in Q2 2018 spent 66% more in Q2 2019 and almost beat their spend in Q4, when retail advertising peaks. This indicates that this year’s Q4 will be meaningfully higher for ECA than most industry experts have forecasted.
Search remains the most steady and consistent channel in digital marketing
Paid search advertising grew another 10% YoY in Q2 2019 compared to Q2 2018. With eMarketer predicting a 7.7% YoY spend increase across the board for all media ad spending worldwide in 2019, Search continues to chug along at a rate higher than the growth of the entire advertising industry.
Social was up big—again
Social advertising spending grew 37% YOY in Q2 2019. Social advertising publishers continue to innovate their ad offerings and attract more share-of-wallet with marketers as Facebook and Instagram continue to lead the pack and separate themselves from the competition.
See data like this and more in the Skai Q2 2019 Quarterly Trends Report
Product ads—across Search and Social—might be becoming a new standalone discipline
Spending on Search product ads was up 30% YoY in Q2 while Social product ads saw a 33% YoY increase which is closer to each other than the growth of their parent channels. Although this isn’t explicit proof that the two are directly linked, anecdotally it might be that brands are managing their product ads as if they are a new, aggregated subset of those two channels. This could be a signal that product advertising is starting to break out as its own discipline with bespoke budgets and managed somewhat like a single channel.
For more information on Q2 2019…
- Download the free Skai Q2 2019 Quarterly Trends Report today!
- Watch the webinar recording
- Download the webinar slides
- View the interactive infographic
