A Merkle report shows the flux in ad spend among the online ad platforms, according to Search Engine Land. Certain trends are showing, like Google seems to be doing well while Yahoo and Bing are declining.
Google Adwords first quarter spending for 2017 is up 19 percent over last quarter of 2016. Click volume and CPC rose 20 percent and 1 percent respectively. This rise is due largelyto product listing ads (PLAs) in image searches, Google map ads, and separate device bids, according to the report.
Tablet bids have continued to decline while CPCs on desktop have risen because of the separate bids now allowed for the two devices. Desktop spend went up 12 percent, and tablets fell 23 percent. Not surprisingly, mobile jumped 51 percent except in CPCs. Desktop beat phone and tablet CPCs. Tablets were 25 percent lower, and mobiles 43 percent.
PLAs and text ads, both are showing growth this quarter. For retail ad clicks in Q1, PLAs were up to 52 percent, a rise of about 4 percent over Q4 of last year. For non-branded retailers, PLAs rose to 75 percent. Google image search and other partners accounted for 11 percent of the PLA clicks. Google text ad spendrose 12 percent while Google Shopping went up 32 percent.
Bing and Yahoo have been declining since Q1 of 2016, showing a 14 percent drop overall at the end of Q1 2017, but represented 19 percent of desktop clicks. Google represented 97 percent of mobile phone traffic in this quarter.
