Digital Marketing Snapshot

Retail media advertisers lead Q1 digital spending growth

Search and social ad dollars also up over last year despite headwinds that include rapid 2021 growth and increased privacy controls
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
FOCUS ON COMMERCE
CORE TRENDS
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Retail media spending growth accelerated in Q1 over the previous quarter while paid search and paid social grew, but at a slower rate
At least one out of 10 search and social accounts doubled ad expenditures YoY, and Retail media nearly doubled that rate at almost one out of every five accounts
Average cost-per-click (CPC) for non-brand search keywords has remained flat for the last three quarters after rising over 50% from Q1 to Q3 of last year
Across all volume metrics, social video ads picked up from Q4 to Q1 both as an ad format and as a campaign objective
Same-advertiser spending on Apple Search Ads grew 67% YoY
CHANNEL GROWTH CONTINUES
Retail media spending growth accelerated in Q1 over the previous quarter while paid search and paid social grew, but at a slower rate
BIG SPENDERS
At least one out of 10 search and social accounts doubled ad expenditures YoY, and Retail media nearly doubled that rate at almost one out of every five accounts
NON-BRANDED KEYWORD SEARCH PRICES
Average cost-per-click (CPC) for non-brand search keywords has remained flat for the last three quarters after rising over 50% from Q1 to Q3 of last year
SOCIAL VIDEO GROWS OVER LAST QUARTER
Across all volume metrics, social video ads picked up from Q4 to Q1 both as an ad format and as a campaign objective
APPLE SEARCH ADS GROWTH
Same-advertiser spending on Apple Search Ads grew 67% YoY
FOCUS ON COMMERCE

COMMERCE SPENDING GROWTH

Retail media saw the least dropoff in advertiser spend after the holidays and the largest YoY increase, while paid search was the opposite

SHOPPING AD SHARE

For commerce-focused advertisers, dedicated shopping ad formats are becoming more concentrated in paid social
CORE TRENDS

Social Trends

Overall spending growth continues to slow, which is generally accepted to be a result of Identifiers for Advertisers (IDFA) disruption
Spending on both video ads and shopping ads have outpaced overall social growth; both are areas where advertisers can operate within privacy constraints
Impressions
QoQ
+5%
YoY
-5%
Clicks
QoQ
-11%
YoY
-6%
Spending
QoQ
-20%
YoY
+10%
CTR
QoQ
-15%
YoY
-2%
CPM
QoQ
-24%
YoY
+15%

Search Trends

The massive acceleration of paid search spend is starting to ease, resulting in slower YoY growth rates
One big reason for the slowdown is that ad prices have stabilized over the last three quarters, particularly for non-branded keywords
Impressions
QoQ
-9%
YoY
+6%
Clicks
QoQ
-12%
YoY
-4%
Spending
QoQ
-22%
YoY
+15%
CTR
QoQ
-3%
YoY
-10%
CPC
QoQ
-11%
YoY
+20%

Retail Media Trends

Growth rates are back up after Q4 appeared softer primarily due to unique circumstances in late 2020
Amazon is still in the driver’s seat, but new retailers are helping drive spending growth
Impressions
QoQ
-7%
YoY
+16%
Clicks
QoQ
+2%
YoY
+32%
Spending
QoQ
-11%
YoY
+38%
CTR
QoQ
+10%
YoY
+14%
CPC
QoQ
-14%
YoY
+5%

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.