New social ad types drive spending growth beyond the previous quarter’s holiday shopping season

San Francisco (April 19, 2016) Kenshoo (www.Kenshoo.com), the global leader in agile marketing, today released a new infographic, Skai Digital Marketing Snapshot: Q1 2016, highlighting the impact that mobile, shopping and new social ad types had on paid social and search advertising. Social ad spend increased 8% quarter-over-quarter (QoQ), eclipsing the mark set in the Q4 holiday shopping season, and improved 86%  year-over-year (YoY), driven by the appeal of new ad types like Facebook Dynamic Product Ads and increased inventory through Instagram. Paid search spend increased 13% YoY, buoyed by increased spend on mobile ads (77% YoY) and product ads (98% YoY). Phones and tablets combined for a majority of clicks in both paid search and social (52% and 71% respectively).

More key findings in the research; overall:

  • Social impressions increased 14% QoQ and 6% YoY
  • Social clicks increased 19% QoQ and 54% YoY
  • Social click-through rate increased 4% QoQ and 45% YoY
  • Paid search impressions decreased 5% QoQ but increased 31% YoY
  • Paid search clicks decreased 6% QoQ but increased 36% YoY
  • Paid search click-through rate decreased 1% QoQ but increased 4% YoY

“Following a fourth quarter which demonstrated the value and performance of product-focused ad types in paid search and social during peak shopping season, marketers continued making good use of specialized ad types in Q1 to keep building momentum,” said Chris Costello, senior director of marketing research for Skai. “New social ad types, new destinations like Instagram, and the continued growth of mobile allowed advertisers leveraging Skai to effectively balance a growing set of opportunities and drive significant growth in impressions and clicks year-over-year.”

“Mobile devices have become the centerpiece of people’s day-to-day lives, enabling everything from communicating with friends to making purchases and everything in between,” said Casey Wilson, director of digital media, Chacka Marketing. “Skai’s industry leading offerings allow us to capitalize on new ad types from top publishers, outmaneuver competitors and connect with people at the most critical moments to fit seamlessly into their treasured mobile experience.”

The Skai Infinity Suite leads the way in digital marketing innovation, enabling success for agile marketers by maximizing customer lifetime value. Built upon Skai’s industry-leading and award-winning digital marketing platform, the Skai Infinity Suite delivers infinite optimization to re-engage and grow customers across all channels and devices.

Visit Kenshoo.com/Digital-Marketing-Snapshot to download the new infographic, Skai Digital Marketing Snapshot: Q1 2016.

Methodology
Search and social results are based on five quarters of performance data managed on the Skai platform from over 3,000 advertiser and agency accounts across 20 vertical industries and over 60 countries, spanning Google, Bing, Baidu, Yahoo!, Yahoo! Japan and the Facebook® Audience Network. Some outliers have been excluded. The resulting sample includes more than 500 billion impressions, 10 billion clicks and $5.5 billion (USD) in advertiser spend. Ad spending and CPC are measured using Ex-FX or “Constant Currency” adjustments, where results are based on native currency, and only translated to common currency after aggregation.

About Skai
Skai is the global leader in agile marketing. Brands, agencies and developers use the Skai Infinity Suite to direct nearly $350 billion in annualized client sales revenue through social, search, mobile, and display advertising. Skai provides leading native API solutions for ads across Facebook, FBX, Instagram, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, Yahoo Gemini, Yahoo Japan, Bing, and Baidu. Skai powers digital marketing campaigns in more than 190 countries for nearly half of the Fortune 50 and all 10 top global ad agency networks. Skai clients include CareerBuilder, Expedia, Facebook, Havas Media, John Lewis, Resolution Media, Sears, Starcom MediaVest Group, Tesco, Travelocity, Walgreens, and Zappos. Skai has 27 international locations and is backed by Sequoia Capital, Arts Alliance, Tenaya Capital, and Bain Capital Ventures. Please visit www.Kenshoo.com for more information.

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