According to Tinuiti, RLSAs were responsible for a declining share of Google search ad clicks between Q3 2019 and Q3 2020. The search agency’s Q3 2020 “GoogleAdsBenchmark Report” noted that the decrease in cookie data could lead to further decreases in the future.
Larger retailers are beginning to act more like digital media companies by leveraging their web traffic and first-party customer data into ad businesses.
According to our July 2021 forecast, 2023 will be a pivotal year for the US B2B digital ad market: Display will overtake search, mobile will surpass nonmobile, and the split between digital and traditional will near a tipping point just beyond our forecast period.
Paid searchads run on smartphones and tablets accounted for just 41% of search ad spending in Q3 2019 because performance lagged on mobile phones compared with desktop. For nonbranded paid search placements, for example, revenues per click on mobile were just 34% as high as on desktop, and costs-per-click (CPCs) were 47% as high.
Wave 4 of IAB Canada’s polling in May showed 22% of respondents had increased spending on paid search in support of reopening efforts. Historically, the strength of search spending was all about Google. But search keyword ads are becoming more popular in new environments, particularly Amazon, which has supplanted Google as the de facto engine for retail-related search.