Report: Customer Match Was Most Impactful PPC Update in 2015

The latest “Search Marketplace Report” from Hanapin Marketing found that Google’s Customer Match PPC update had the biggest impact on 46 percent of search marketers in 2015, putting it at the top of the list.

Moving down the list of the most impactful PPC updates in 2015, Gmail ad updates had the biggest effect on 22 percent of respondents, and call-only campaigns had a serious impact on 19 percent.

According to the report, Q1 2016 investments in search were up 47 percent since Q3 2015, and up 15 percent from Q4 2015.

Forty-two percent of agency respondents said they would see their 2016 PPC budget increase most for Google, and 35 percent said they would see budgets increase most for social advertising.

In-house respondents expect 2016 budgets to increase the most for Google (49 percent), social advertising (22 percent) and programmatic (20 percent).

The survey results also showed trends that mobile phone users are becoming more comfortable with clicking and purchasing from their devices. Q1-2016 mobile conversions are up 75 percent YoY and clicks are up 40 percent.

Researchers determined that “This is proof that users are not only searching for products on their phone now, but they are also completing the purchase process.”

Google Paid Search Ad Spend Increases YoY

The “Digital Marketing Report” from Merkle discovered that Google paid search ad spend increased 25 percent YoY in Q1 2016. The total ad spend on non-branded keywords increased 24 percent, which was the highest growth rate the results have yielded in the past six quarters. In addition, clicks increased 33 percent in Q1 2016 compared to Q1 2015.