Infographic: Digital Marketing Snapshot

No signs of weakness in ad spending across digital advertising channels, as social, search and ecommerce spending all grew in the second quarter, digital marketing research shows.

Shopping ads drove impressions higher for search marketers, but slowed overall impression growth for social, while ecommerce channel ads saw ad spending in Q2 comparable to the holidays
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
MOBILE/PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT
CORE TRENDS
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Across all Instagram spending, the Stories format has doubled its share from 9% to 18%
Impressions from Mobile Search Shopping campaigns have doubled year-over-year, while the rest of search has remained mostly flat
Same-advertiser spending on Ecommerce Channel Ads increased 66% year-over-year (YoY), and almost surpassed total spending in Q4
In geographical markets where Pinterest is available, 1 in 10 large Facebook advertisers on Skai™ have Pinterest campaigns, and 1 in 5 FB advertisers in ecommerce
Social
As a share of total Instagram spending, the Stories format has doubled its share from 9% to 18%
Search
Impressions from Mobile Search Shopping campaigns have doubled year-over-year, while the rest of search has remained mostly flat
Ecommerce
Same-advertiser spending on Ecommerce Channel Ads increased 66% year-over-year (YoY), and almost surpassed total spending in Q4
Pinterest
In geographical markets where Pinterest is available, 1 in 10 large Facebook advertisers on Skai™ have Pinterest campaigns, and 1 in 5 FB advertisers in ecommerce
MOBILE/PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT

Mobile Spotlight

Mobile ads comprised 87% of Q2 social spending and 51% of search spending

Product Spotlight

Product ads accounted for 46% of total Q2 search spending and 37% of social spending for Skai™ ecommerce advertisers
CORE TRENDS

Social Trends

  • Paid Social ad spending grew 37% over the second quarter of 2018, driven by mobile and video ads
  • Video, Instagram and overall branding efforts continued to have an impact on direct engagement with social ads, driving both click volume and click-through rate lower over time
  • On a CPM basis, Dynamic Ads for Products were the primary driver of pricing increases
Impressions
QoQ
-2%
YoY
+24%
Clicks
QoQ
-7%
YoY
-12%
Spending
QoQ
+7%
YoY
+37%
CTR
QoQ
-5%
YoY
-27%
CPM
QoQ
+9%
YoY
+10%

Search Trends

  • Search impressions grew 41% year-over-year, as mobile search shopping campaigns doubled the number of eyeballs reached compared to Q2 of last year
  • These ads are typically lower-priced than other segments, so the net result on search spending was a 10% increase YoY, which is very much in line with historical growth rates
  • Lower cost-per-click and click-through rates for overall search were also driven primarily by mobile shopping ads
Impressions
QoQ
+4%
YoY
+41%
Clicks
QoQ
+2%
YoY
+23%
Spending
QoQ
+5%
YoY
+10%
CTR
QoQ
-4%
YoY
-14%
CPC
QoQ
+2%
YoY
-10%

View reports from previous quarters:

Methodology

Except where noted, analysis is based on Skai advertisers with 15 consecutive months of performance data taken from a population of over 3,000 advertiser and agency accounts across more than 40 industry categories and 150 countries, spanning Google, Amazon Advertising, Baidu, Yandex, Yahoo!, Yahoo! Japan, Pinterest, Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram and the Facebook Audience Network. Some outliers have been excluded. The resulting sample includes more than 500 billion impressions, 13 billion clicks and $5.5 billion (USD) in advertiser spending.

For charts showing impressions, clicks and spending, volume metrics have been normalized to a factor of 1 based on the initial volume for the first quarter of data. Data points from subsequent quarters are based on a multiplier from the first quarter. For example, 1.6 means that volume is 60% greater than volume on the initial quarter measured.

Ad spending and CPC are measured using Ex-FX or “Constant Currency” adjustments, where results are based on native currency, and only translated to common currency after aggregation.

Note: There may be variation in numbers for past or future digital marketing research published by Skai as the rolling data set is dynamic for each new quarter.