The biggest online shopping day of the year was even bigger in 2013. Advertisers in the Skai Global Retail Index spent 27% on more on paid search than they did on last year’s Cyber Monday with positive gains across the board in clicks, conversions, and revenue.
Phones and Tablets continued to be big drivers of paid search activity but slightly down from the historic Thanksgiving and Black Friday levels that we reported in a Skai blog post on Monday.
With so many consumers away from their Computers (desktops, laptops, notebooks, etc.) for the holiday weekend, mobile devices made up almost 40% of total paid search spend and over 44% of total paid search clicks.
On Monday, however, with consumers either back at home or at their work computers, 3 out of 4 paid search dollars and 2 out 3 clicks originated from Computers. Phones accounted for 11% of paid search spend and 19% of clicks. Advertisers spent slightly more on tablets (15% of total) than phones although Tablets received less clicks (14% of total).
Actual completed online sales are still dominated by Computers with 81% of total revenue from paid search. Tablets accounted for a healthy 16% of total revenue with Phones still trending behind at just 3% of total revenue coming from those devices.
Cyber Monday 2013 – PLAs Come of Age
Paid search advertisers who may have still been testing paid Google Shopping ads for the first time last year were certainly ready to capitalize on this format in 2013 as retailers more than doubled their investment year-over-year (YoY) on Product Listing Ads (PLA) this Cyber Monday.
“As the shopping season kicked into high gear, we expected retailers to ramp up PLAs because of the extraordinary opportunity they provide to capture in-market consumers with rich ad formats,” said Aaron Goldman, Skai CMO.
The Cyber Monday numbers are a clear indication that retailers see PLAs as a key component of driving online sales with a 257% YoY increase in spend, 217% YoY increase in conversions, and 219% YoY lift in revenue. Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) did dip slightly by 11% YoY but this slight drop in efficiency is definitely overshadowed by the huge increases in volume.
“On Cyber Monday, retailers saw triple-digit year-over-year growth in PLA spend, conversions, and revenue while only noticing a slight decrease in ROAS from $9.83 in 2012 to $8.79 in 2013,” said Goldman. “The ability to scale your PLA program by 2.5 times and still achieve almost a 9 to 1 return for every dollar spent demonstrates the true power and efficiency of this ad format.”
Methodology
The data analyzed reflects a representative cross-section of Skai clients (advertisers and agencies) around the world managing paid search programs and/or Product Listing Ads for the retail vertical with active campaigns tracking impressions, clicks, conversions and revenue on Cyber Monday 2012 and 2013. This index includes all major retail categories such as, but not limited to, electronics, books, apparel, appliances, shoes, sporting goods and more. All data is accurate as of December 3rd, 2013 but subject to change as delayed conversions are added in subsequent days. Final figures will be released in the full Skai 2013 Online Retail Holiday Shopping Report, available in early January 2014.
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