Digital Marketing Snapshot 2022 Q3

Advertisers grow ad spending in Q3 to find customers in a challenging economy

Performance marketing channels respond to shifting customer demand by increasing ad volume at lower prices
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
FOCUS ON COMMERCE
CORE TRENDS
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Spending growth in Q3 was broadly similar to last quarter despite economic headwinds, as algorithms adjusted to external conditions
Ad prices declined across all channels, while the volume of ad impressions and clicks increased, reflecting market conditions and changes to ad inventory
Lower CPC for search shopping campaigns and retail media ads balanced lower conversion rate (CVR) and average order size (AOS) to maintain or improve return on ad spend (ROAS)
Spending and ad prices for commerce post types and campaign objectives both jumped in Q3, showing a key difference between direct response and brand marketers in the social channel
GROWTH TRENDS CONTINUE IN Q3
Spending growth in Q3 was broadly similar to last quarter despite economic headwinds, as algorithms adjusted to external conditions
MORE ADS AT LOWER PRICES
Ad prices declined across all channels, while the volume of ad impressions and clicks increased, reflecting market conditions and changes to ad inventory
AD PRICES ADAPT TO CONSUMER DEMAND
Lower CPC for search shopping campaigns and retail media ads balanced lower conversion rate (CVR) and average order size (AOS) to maintain or improve return on ad spend (ROAS)
SOCIAL COMMERCE FLEX
Spending and ad prices for commerce post types and campaign objectives both jumped in Q3, showing a key difference between direct response and brand marketers in the social channel
FOCUS ON COMMERCE

COMMERCE SPENDING GROWTH

Retail media and social showed robust investment growth across commerce segments, while declining ad prices led to lower spend for search shopping campaigns that was then offset by keyword spend at the account level

SHOPPING AD SHARE

With lower ad prices for shopping ads in search, and higher ad prices for social, the share of total commerce spend from these ads diverged in Q3
CORE TRENDS

Social Trends

Over one-quarter of social spend came from advertisers who increased spending YoY despite lower CPM, which strongly suggests additional inventory
Across shopping segments, however, CPM increased along with impression volume to drive overall spending up in the channel
Impressions
QoQ
+19%
YoY
+31%
Clicks
QoQ
+21%
YoY
+23%
Spending
QoQ
+10%
YoY
+12%
CTR
QoQ
+2%
YoY
-7%
CPM
QoQ
-8%
YoY
-15%

Search Trends

Overall paid search spending increased 12% over last year, and has shown little variance over the middle six months of 2022
Lower ad prices for search shopping campaigns drove overall cost-per-click down compared to last year
Impressions
QoQ
-2%
YoY
+29%
Clicks
QoQ
+1%
YoY
+18%
Spending
QoQ
+2%
YoY
+12%
CTR
QoQ
+3%
YoY
-8%
CPC
QoQ
+1%
YoY
-5%

Retail Media Trends

With the July Amazon sales event providing extra momentum, retail media advertisers increased spending by 45% over last year
Average cost-per-click dipped YoY as a result of Walmart's switch to second-price auctions coupled with optimization adjustments for lower order size
Impressions
QoQ
+14%
YoY
+61%
Clicks
QoQ
+11%
YoY
+64%
Spending
QoQ
+3%
YoY
+45%
CTR
QoQ
-3%
YoY
0%
CPC
QoQ
-7%
YoY
-12%

View reports from previous quarters:

Methodology

Analysis is drawn from a population of approximately $9 billion in advertising spend over five quarters, comprising more than 3,000 advertiser and agency accounts across 40 vertical industries and more than 150 countries running on the Skai platform on Google, Microsoft, Baidu, Yandex, Yahoo! Japan, Verizon Media, Amazon, Walmart, Instacart, Criteo, Kroger, Apple Search Ads, Pinterest, Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram.

Except where noted, analysis is based on Skai advertisers with 15 consecutive months of performance data. 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.