Digital Marketing Snapshot

Spending growth has moderated across channels, which was inevitable given the state of the recovery from COVID-19 across the advertising space

Higher ad prices in Paid Social and Paid Search drove year-over-year growth, while Retail Media combined higher prices with more volume
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
CONSUMER GOODS & RETAIL
CORE TRENDS
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
After the abnormally high, pandemic-driven growth across all channels in Q2, spending increases continued in Q3 at more moderate rates.
Year-over-year price increases were a major component of spending growth for Paid Search and Paid Social, but less so for Retail Media, where click volume also contributed.
While Social ad prices are up sharply year-over-year, there does not appear to be a major inflection point that coincides with the release of Apple iOS 14.5 in late April.
Mobile keywords have closed the pricing gap with desktop keywords in many industry categories and are now more expensive than desktop keywords were last year.
CHANNEL GROWTH CONTINUES IN Q3
After the abnormally high, pandemic-driven growth across all channels in Q2, spending increases continued in Q3 at more moderate rates.
PRICE VS SPENDING INCREASES
Year-over-year price increases were a major component of spending growth for Paid Search and Paid Social, but less so for Retail Media, where click volume also contributed.
SOCIAL CPM HOLDING STEADY
While Social ad prices are up sharply year-over-year, there does not appear to be a major inflection point that coincides with the release of Apple iOS 14.5 in late April.
MOBILE SEARCH KEYWORDS CLOSE THE PRICE GAP
Mobile keywords have closed the pricing gap with desktop keywords in many industry categories and are now more expensive than desktop keywords were last year.
CONSUMER GOODS & RETAIL

CONSUMER GOODS & RETAIL

Paid Social spending continued to lead growth for Consumer Goods & Retail advertisers heading into the all-important fourth quarter with a year-over-year increase of 50%.

SHOPPING AD SHARE

The share of Consumer Goods & Retail spending from shopping ads has dropped for Paid Search, while it has inched up for Paid Social.
CORE TRENDS

Paid Social Trends

Social spending grew 26% over Q3 of last year, and was mostly flat compared to last quarter.
Slight decreases in YoY impressions and clicks emphasize the impact of higher ad prices.
Impressions
QoQ
-6%
YoY
-6%
Clicks
QoQ
-4%
YoY
-2%
Spending
QoQ
-3%
YoY
+26%
CTR
QoQ
+3%
YoY
+4%
CPM
QoQ
+3%
YoY
+34%

Paid Search Trends

Spending on paid search ads increased 32% over last year and 3% over last quarter.
Higher prices for keyword ads compensated for a drop in search shopping campaign volume.
Impressions
QoQ
-14%
YoY
+0%
Clicks
QoQ
-11%
YoY
+1%
Spending
QoQ
+3%
YoY
+32%
CTR
QoQ
+4%
YoY
+1%
CPC
QoQ
+15%
YoY
+30%

Retail Media Trends

With a 45% spending increase over last year, Retail Media growth continues to outpace the other channels.
As Amazon matures, new retailers add additional breadth and more inventory for brands to reach active shoppers.
Impressions
QoQ
-9%
YoY
+1%
Clicks
QoQ
-9%
YoY
+19%
Spending
QoQ
-7%
YoY
+45%
CTR
QoQ
+0%
YoY
+20%
CPC
QoQ
+2%
YoY
+21%

View reports from previous quarters:

Methodology

Analysis is drawn from a population of approximately $7B in advertising spend, comprising over 3,000 advertiser and agency accounts across 40 vertical industries and over 150 countries running on the Skai platform on Google, Microsoft, Baidu, Yandex, Yahoo! Japan, Verizon Media, Amazon, Walmart, Instacart, Criteo, Apple Search Ads, Pinterest, Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram and the Facebook Audience Network.

Except where noted, only advertisers with 15 consecutive months of performance data are included. Some additional outliers have been excluded. Ad spending and pricing have been translated to USD at the time the spending was incurred.

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.

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