3. 3
The Q3 2014 Performance Marketer’s Benchmark Report:
Vital Search, Social & Display Performance Data by Device
INTRODUCTION
Historically, Q3 has been a critical quarter for advertisers across all key verticals. Many
marketers use Q3 as a way to get ready for Q4, which is frequently their most important
quarter. But how should advertisers plan their spending to get the most bang for their
buck? To answer this question, we took a look at the Marin Global Online Advertising
Index to try and understand how device and platform performance have shaped up over
the past quarter.
METHODOLOGY
To understand device and platform performance for Q3 2014, we sampled the Marin
Global Online Advertising Index, which looks at over $6 billion worth of advertising
spend in the Marin platform. The Index consists of enterprise-class marketers: larger
advertisers and agencies who spend in excess of $1 million annually on paid-search,
social, and display advertising channels. As such, our data sample and findings skew
towards the behavior of larger organizations and more sophisticated advertisers.
We examined this data longitudinally year-to-date, and measured key performance
indicators (KPIs) on a quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) basis. Wherever possible, we used
medians and indexed values to more clearly highlight overall trends instead of overall
values. This allowed us to mitigate the effects of outliers, and make the findings more
representative of the performance of the typical Marin client. We focused our findings
on device and platform data. Please note that for the social channel, it was only
possible to break out the data on the desktop and mobile device level. Mobile device is
an aggregate of both smartphone and tablet.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
1. Mobile devices are taking up more and more consumer attention and advertiser budget
than ever before.
2. Consumers are still converting on desktops over mobile devices, although advertisers
are getting better at optimizing towards mobile conversions.
3. Differences in click-through rates, cost-per-click, and conversion rates across channels
require a more holistic approach to spending.
SHIFTING LANDSCAPE OF DEVICE USAGE AMONGST CONSUMERS
Over the past several years, we have come to live in an increasingly multi-device world.
The explosive growth and spread of smartphones and tablets have fundamentally
changed how people communicate, socialize, and purchase products. QoQ smartphone
usage has risen across all channels. Consumers are now using mobile devices more
than ever, driving over 50% of all social sharing.1 According to ComScore, consumers
are spending one out of every three minutes of all online browsing time on mobile
devices2 and that activity is only expected to increase. By the end of 2014, there will
1 http://www.iab.net/media/file/ShareThis_CSTR_July2014.pdf
2 http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Presentations-and-Whitepapers/2013/2013-Mobile-Future-in-Focus
4. 4
The Q3 2014 Performance Marketer’s Benchmark Report:
Vital Search, Social & Display Performance Data by Device
be 1.2 billion smartphones sold, 23.8% greater than last year.3 From Q1 to Q2 2014,
mobile browsing activity grew 19%, with online browsing activity on smartphones
growing by 27.8%. Conversely, desktop browsing activity dropped 5.5%.4 This
increased mobile browsing activity signals a shift in consumer behavior from desktops,
to smartphones and tablets.
ADVERTISER RESPONSE TO CHANGING CONSUMER TRENDS
As a result of the apparent shifts in consumer device usage towards smartphones and
tablets, advertisers are also beginning to adapt their strategies to focus more on these
devices. We took a look at search, social, and display advertisers in the Marin Global
Online Advertising Index to understand just how consumer behavior has changed
advertiser spend across the globe. Unsurprisingly, there have been large shifts away
from desktop over the last few years, with mobile devices taking up more and more of
advertiser budgets and time.
Across search, we’ve seen mobile device (smartphones and tablets) share increase
significantly in the past year, with smartphones capturing the lion’s share of the growth.
Year-over-year (YoY), desktops have lost 8.5% click share, with smartphones snapping
up 6.1%. While advertisers devote just over 42% of all spend on mobile devices,
mobile conversions only make up about 30% of search conversions. What this means
is twofold: 1. That advertisers still have issues with correctly attributing mobile
conversions as well as converting a mobile search click to a mobile conversion, and
2. That consumers are still not as comfortable on converting on mobile as they are on
desktops. As many customers use mobile devices for initial research on products, the
gap between mobile click share and conversion share may be explained by consumers
using mobile advertising to initiate the purchase cycle, which they complete in store. In
fact, according to Google, mobile clicks may convert into in-store purchases,5 or saved
as a reference for a later at-home purchase on a desktop due to the relative ease of
desktop form-fills. Interestingly, while smartphone spend outpaces smartphone clicks
and conversions, we see an opposite trend with tablet devices, which makes up only
8% of ad spend, but 15% of clicks and 12.4% of conversions.
Search Advertising Share by Device: Q3 2014
Desktops Smartphones Tablets
13.6% 15.0% 8.0% 12.4%
17.5% 22.7% 34.5% 17.4%
68.9% 62.2% 57.4%
3 http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS25058714
4 http://www.iab.net/media/file/ShareThis_CSTR_July2014.pdf
5 http://adwords.blogspot.com/2013/02/understanding-full-value-of-mobile.html
70.2%
Impressions Clicks Spend Conversions
5. 5
The Q3 2014 Performance Marketer’s Benchmark Report:
Vital Search, Social & Display Performance Data by Device
-5.5%
Search Advertising Share: Year over Year Change
Desktops Smartphones Tablets
-8.5% -7.6%
Device share for the display advertising channel exhibits similar characteristics to
search. Mobile impression, click, spend, and conversion share amongst display
advertisers has grown at a significantly higher rate YoY than search. Smartphones
have taken up much of this growth, with desktops losing over 10% click share, which
has almost exclusively shifted to smartphones. There is a much heavier mobile device
focus for display than there is for search. Almost half of all display spend in Q3 was
on mobile devices, and over half of clicks. Again, there is a discrepancy between
smartphone and tablet spend versus clicks, where tablet clicks outpace tablet spend,
and vice versa for smartphones. This is due to the aforementioned increase in mobile
device usage across the world and the corresponding increase in mobile display ad
exchanges. Mobile-focused display advertising has been on many advertisers’ minds,
with Google even recently revealing new mobile display ad formats.6
Display Advertising Share by Device: Q3 2014
Desktops Smartphones Tablets
12.9% 16.5% 9.8% 15.9%
6 http://venturebeat.com/2014/09/29/google-rolls-out-new-display-ads-for-mobile/
-10.3%
2.9%
6.1% 6.4%
10.6%
2.6% 2.4% 1.2%
-0.3%
Impressions Clicks Spend Conversions
60.5%
45.8% 50.0%
61.4%
26.6%
37.7%
40.1% 22.7%
Impressions Clicks Spend Conversions
6. 6
The Q3 2014 Performance Marketer’s Benchmark Report:
Vital Search, Social & Display Performance Data by Device
Display Advertising Share: Year over Year Change
Desktops Smartphones Tablets
12.1% 10.2%
-14.1%
2.0% 0.2%
-10.4%
20.1%
10.9%
-4.8%
-15.3% -15.8%
5.0%
Impressions Clicks Spend Conversions
In Q3, over 50% of impressions, clicks, and spend on social channels were on mobile
devices. This is because social networks have the fastest mobile user growth of any
channel. In Q2 this year, over a billion Facebook users accessed the site via a mobile
device, with about 400 million of those users being mobile-only.7 This explosive mobile
usage for social channels has fueled advertisers to pour money into this channel.
However, social conversion share by device is still mostly desktop-focused, with 65%
of all social conversions happening on a desktop computer. In fact, social mobile
conversion share is less than display conversion share, even though social mobile click
and spend share are far greater than display. There is a disconnect between social
channel spend and actual conversions. Consumer intent on social networks does not
center on finding products and services, which makes them less likely to convert. This
is in contrast with consumer intent on search, where the very act of searching is when
they are directly looking for specific items, which increases chances of engagement
and conversion on ads.
Social Advertising Share by Device: Q3 2014
47.7%
Desktops Mobile
37.0% 39.1%
64.8%
52.3%
63.0% 60.9%
35.2%
Impressions Clicks Spend Conversions
7 http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/02/04/overseas-users-power-facebooks-growth-more-going-mobile-only/
