New Report Uncovers Q2 2015 Search Trends for Digital Marketers

The “Digital Marketing Report” from Merkle/RKG has revealed numerous Q2 2015 search trends that could be beneficial for those that are invested in digital marketing campaigns. Overall, the state of paid, social and organic search remains healthy.

The Growth of Organic Search

The results show a 12 percent year-over-year increase in organic search visits, with visits from phones up 44 percent. In the second quarter, organic search was responsible for 35 percent of total site visits in the U.S. The growth in organic search visits has shown consistent improvement in recent quarters, while paid search click growth has slowed down.

Google organic search has shown particular advancement in mobile, now capturing 89 percent of all mobile organic search visits. In terms of devices, iOS mobile products produced 30 percent of organic search visits in the second quarter. Android phones and tablets were only responsible for 13 percent of organic search visits in the same time frame.

A Rise in Social Search

Facebook was responsible for about 60 percent of the social media-driven site visits recorded in the second quarter. This is a 51 percent increase from the same quarter in 2014, and it reflects a growing investment in social networking.

In the CMO Survey released last year, CMOs at B2B companies that offer a product said that an average of 19.9 percent of their budget would go into social media within the next five years. CMOs at B2B companies that provide a service claimed that 22.2 percent of their budget would go into social media.

Investment in Paid Search

Total U.S. paid search spending growth slowed to 14 percent year-over-year in the second quarter. “Rising CPCs have limited click growth opportunities for advertisers seeking to maintain their program efficiency levels,” wrote the authors of the report.

Spending on Google search ads rose 12 percent year-over-year in Q2, but this was a 1 percent decrease from the previous quarter.