The first quarter saw some major changes taken by Google, such as the removal of the right rail ads and introducing 4 ads in the top page results. How these changes impacted the search engine space and the advertisers were speculated throughout. Here is the answer to how the change has actually affected the overall performance. The Q1 report by Merkle has some interesting findings other than the ones revolving around the major updation.
You can download the report here to view the entire report and make use of its findings.
For now, here are some of the highlights:
1. Influx of mobile ad volume and drop in CPC
With Google having introduced more ads in top of phone results, has resulted in doubling the click growth. Alternately it has led to a steep drop in the overall CPC to 3%, because of increase in the no. of top page ads. The search ad spending still shows a growth of 19% this quarter in comparison to 18% growth in Q4 2015.
2. Desktop partner share goes through a slump
Losing AOL to Bing has resulted in drop of roughly 1% in search ad clicks. Also, the removal of the right side ads, has led to a steady rise in the minimum bid estimates for the first page, with the ad no.s having been reduced to 7 from 11. The CPC is, however, seen to be steady overall as a result of the introduction of the 4th ad in the top page result, leading to draining of the high-priced clicks (top position).
3. Phones search ad clicks increases and so does its search spend share
This quarter has realized major contribution from phones with the search ad clicks having increased from 33% (last quarter) to 39%. The search ad clicks were up by 101% YoY on phones and search ad spend rose to 123%. In comparison, desktop clicks were flat and tablet clicks fell by 5%. Overall phone has surpassed tablets in search spend share, though earlier it fell behind as a result of lower CPCs.
4. Organic search share drops owing to growth in paid search ads.
Organic search went down from 31% to 28% , with traffic majorly driven by mobile. Though Google still maintains its share in the Organic search share in comparison to the other search engines by rising to 85% from 84%.
Further the mobile organic search share has seen a downfall with major share now being taken over by paid search.
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