Campaigns: Search Ad Revs Inch Up 12%, Facebook Revs Skyrocket 191%

Advertisers are getting better at connecting with potential and existing customers through search and social campaigns, even on mobile. Marketers spent 26% of budgets to gain 28% of clicks on mobile, which Kenshoo defines as smartphones and tablets, in Q1 2014.

During the first quarter in 2014, marketers running campaigns through Kenshoo's platform spent 10% on paid search ads and 37% more on social, compared with the prior-year quarter, but fell 14% and 40% sequentially, respectively.

Revenue generated from the search campaigns rose 12% and social (Facebook), 191% in the quarter, compared with a year ago. Mature markets like search grow at a slower pace, as revenue from emerging media like social tends to grow faster.

The campaigns ran on Bing, Google, Yahoo and Facebook.

Clicks from search campaigns rose 8%, compared with social at 1% The average cost per click for search campaigns remained rose 1% sequentially, but 2% to $0.59 compared with the year-ago quarter. The CPC for social fell 26% sequentially, but rose up 35% to $0.25 YoY for campaigns running through its platform.

Last year was the first many companies made social campaigns a fixed line item in the marketing budget, turning to social at the end of the year to spend leftover budgets, per Aaron Goldman, Kenshoo CMO. The company sees more marketers viewing social as an always-on channel, similar to the way they look at search.

Kenshoo put together an infographic showing the growth in Facebook advertising and paid search in this year's first quarter, compared with the prior year, though the numbers show seasonal dips coming off a strong Q4 holiday season. Only companies using the platform for 15 months were included in the sample. The company delivers 3,200 ads per second supporting about $5 billion in annualized spend running through its platform. It supports a high percentage of ecommerce companies. 

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