Mobile Search and Social Ad Spend See Growth in Q1 2016

Customers are increasingly turning to mobile channels to find information and products and marketers are following suit. New data by Kenshoo on the first quarter of 2016 shows phones and tablets combined to make up the majority of clicks for both search and social ads.

Businesses investing in social ads found smartphone and tablet clicks accounted for 71 percent of all clicks and 63 percent of spend during the first three months of the year, the data shows.

There is significant growth in paid social spend – year over year spend is up 86 percent and – contrary to typical seasonal shifts – spend increased 9 percent from Q4 to Q1.

Additionally, the share of clicks and spend for mobile continued its rise in the first quarter of 2016; smartphones made up 40 percent of clicks and 29 percent of spend.

Furthermore, advertisers are turning to mobile app channels in order to gain audience; for example, Instagram accounted for 14 percent of impressions and 17 percent of clicks in Q1 2016.

“Mobile devices have become the centerpiece of people’s day-to-day lives, enabling everything from communicating with friends to making purchases and everything in between,” said Casey Wilson, director of digital media, Chacka Marketing.

However, despite the growth in mobile and social, desktop search is still a mainstay. The data shows desktop keywords grew 5 percent year over year in both clicks and spend.

See the full infographic here.

Marketers Find Social Media Marketing Effective

A survey by Halverson Group in December 2015 found that sponsored social media advertising is more effective than several traditional marketing tactics.

According to the data, marketers gave sponsored social media advertising an effectiveness rating of 7.29, which was ahead of online display (6.55), TV ads (6.46) and radio ads (5.65). Marketers named content marketing the most effective (7.75), followed by experiential marketing (7.46).