• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, June 4, 2020

U.S. ecommerce sales grew 49% compared with early March before shelter-in-place restrictions went into effect, according to Adobe’s Digital Economy Index.

Sidecar, a performance marketing tech provider, released data Thursday on insights around retail ad performance in 2020 across Google, Facebook, and Amazon for orders, revenue, return on ad spend, conversion rate (CVR), average order size and more.

The data suggests that orders from Google Ads saw some pretty strong growth year-over-year in 2020, all things considered. YoY order growth in January rose 22%, while it rose 23% in March and 113% in April.

Some advertisers on Google experienced low CPCs and higher orders year-over-year. While CPCs fell 27% and retailer ad spend fell 11%, impressions rose 28%, clicks were up 22%, orders jumped 113%, revenue rose 28%, ROAS rose up 43% and CVR increased 75%.

Consumers stocked up on essentials in March and early April, but they have since turned their attention to other products that help them manage COVID-19.

When it comes to advertising, Sidecar is seeing momentum in retail for a broadly defined “at-home comfort” category, such as house and home, sporting goods, and computers and electronics.

Retailers increased Google Shopping spend in March by more than 6% YoY. They looked to cut costs in April, shaving more than 3% off spend YoY that translated into revenue growing by more than 14% YoY and ROAS improving by more than 17% YoY.

Retailers also turned to Google paid search to gain efficiencies. In March, marketers cut 13% in costs gaining more than 17% in revenue and 34% in return on ad spend. In April they cut 30% in costs gaining more than 65% in revenue and 135% in return on ad spend.

Orders rose 255% and CVR rose 165% in April YoY, although the AOV dropped by 54% YoY, but the massive increase in orders pushed up revenue.

On Facebook during the week of March 22, spend dipped by more than 37% week-over-week and clicks slowed by 23%. Revenue came in nearly flat, but it grew about 2% WoW.

The week of March 29 showed a recovery, with clicks in April rising about 25% month-over-month.

Similarly, revenue in April rose more than 25% month-over-month.

On Amazon, the average CPC did not change drastically during the outbreak. The biggest change this year occurred during the week of March 15, when average CPC grew 11% week-over-week.

Spend in the marketplace has varied, depending on factors such as product catalog and fulfillment.

Some key verticals that increased the amount spent in April included apparel, house/home, and computers/electronics. Sporting goods and health/beauty pulled back spend in April, after having ramped up spend in March.

Apparel saw the strongest conversion rates and orders in March, April, and May.