Smartphones Surpass Tablets In Search Spend For Q3, Report Finds
- by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, October 2, 2014
Brands continue to invest more of their search budget in mobile. For smartphones that investment during Q3 2014 rose 121%; and on tablets 32%. For Google that growth means an uptick of 127% year-on-year (YoY) for phones and 25% for tablets. For the Yahoo-Bing network growth looks more like 86% YoY for phones and 70% for tablets, per a study released Thursday.
It's no surprise that smartphones have begun to outpace tablets in paid-search spend, especially as the phone screen gets bigger. The IgnitionOne Q3 2014 Digital Marketing Report shows that for the first time, paid-search spend on smartphones surpasses tablet spend, rising 18.5% sequentially. Smartphones and tablets now account for 33% of total paid-search spend overall, up 18.5% from Q2 2014.
Yahoo-Bing impressions on phone rose 158% versus Google at 12% during Q3 2014, among IgnitionOne clients. On tablets, Yahoo-Bing impressions rose 117%, while Google impressions fell 20%. IgnitionOne attributes the decline to changes in the partner network, and Apple devices defaulting to Yahoo-Bing for search on Safari.
The Yahoo-Bing search network continues to gain market share against Google among IgnitionOne clients in other areas too. In fact, Q3 demonstrates the best quarter for the two engines since Q1 2009 among IgnitionOne clients. The network increased its U.S. paid-search market share to 25% compared with Google's 75%.
Roger Barnette, president of IgnitionOne, believes brands and their agencies partners are getting better at finding consumers wherever they are on whatever device they use.
As the Yahoo and Bing search network grows in popularity it becomes more expensive to run campaigns. The partner network saw a 5.8% drop in traffic year over year, but the large increase in cost per click prompted brands to spend more, about 17.6%.
IgnitionOne releases digital marketing figures quarterly. Since the report's inception, the company has tracked more 110 billion display impressions and more than 3.4 billion clicks.
