• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, November 20, 2017

It makes sense that search ads promising consumers the biggest amount saved on products or services can gain the highest share of impressions, but what fizzles on desktop can skyrocket on mobile and vice versa.

The data released Monday from Adthena -- which uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine-learning technology tied to search data to analyze trends -- shows that offers in ads for “50% off” took 0.53% impression share on desktop, while the same phrase on smartphones took 1.81% impression share.

The keyword phrase "70% off" on desktop took 2.59% of impressions, while mobile impression share did a little better at 2.62%. The anomaly was the phrase "40% off." While it took 0.39% share of impressions on desktop, it only took 0.32% share of mobile impressions.

Adthena released the data Monday in a study analyzing Black Friday search marketing and advertising for the consumer electronics industry to identify some of the trends that marketers may see in 2017.

The data analyzes 15,171 search ads and 214,103,179 estimated impressions from Black Friday 2016, from about 161 retailers that carry consumer electronics -- from major to niche brands. The finding is intended to give marketers insight into trending products for 2017.

The impression share shows the keywords that consumers searched for on desktops and mobile devices. The product ads on desktops that demonstrated the highest number of consumer impressions include "Gift" at 8.29% of all impressions, "iPad" at 4.49%, and "TV" at 4.48%. On mobile, the top impressions went to "gift” at 8.48%, "phone" at 6.31%, and "appliance" at 4.33 %.

The data suggests that consumers did not take into consideration whether or not they were required to pay a delivery or shipping fee. In other words, "free delivery" didn't matter.

The search ads were analyzed to evaluate the popularity and use of free shipping, revealing that on desktop that 55% of the impressions went to ads with no free shipping offered. Ads with free shipping captured 45% of all impressions.

Mobile numbers showed similar trends. About 63% of all mobile impressions went to ads that did not reference free shipping, while 37% went to free shipping ads.

Ashley Fletcher, director of product marketing at Adthena, suggests the data shows that the value of free delivery is diminishing and that purchase habits have become more impulsive.

On desktop, deal-related ad copy on ads running across desktops featured the phrase "Save," driving the highest share of impressions at 20.51%. The keyword "% off" followed by at 5.31%, and "Clearance" at 4.66%.

Mobile impressions were somewhat varied. "Save" came in as the top keyword phrase on mobile devices taking 19.87% of all mobile impressions. “Clearance" at 9.66% and “% Off” at 5.39% rounded out the top three.