Facebook’s undisputed victory in ad personalization is driving Google to make changes to its advertising business, according to ADI's Q3 Digital Advertising & Social Intelligence Report.
2. Table of contents
ADOBE DIGITAL INDEX | Digital Advertising Report Q3 2015 2
Charts
03 Overview
04 Key insights
05 Paid search spend growth by region
06 Share of paid search spend in North America
07 Global paid search spend growth by sector
08 CTR growth by search engine and region
09 CPC and CTR growth by device type
10 Global paid search CPC comparison by device type
11 Global display CPM comparison by device type
12 Paid search CPC and CTR growth: smartphone
13 CPC growth by search engine and region
14 CTR and CPC growth by sector
Appendix
26 Methodology
27 Glossary
28
Tables
15 Global display ad CPC and CTR growth
16 Facebook ad CPC’s and CTR’s
17 Facebook paid ad clicks and impressions growth
18 Facebook and Google comparison: CTR’s
19 Streaming video apps: periscope
20 Social interaction rate by industry and content type
21 Social referred visit growth by industry
22 Share of smartphone visits referred from social
23 Social referred revenue growth by device type
24 Revenue per visit by referrer
25 Reddit CEO’s firing drives sadness
3. Overview
This report covers a broad range of information from the digital advertising industry with insights centered around
search engine marketing. Topics include:
• Insights around Google’s search and display business.
• Search engine spend, click-through-rates (CTR), and cost-per-click (CPC) across different regions, search engines, and devices.
• How search behaviors and metrics differ across devices.
• How social behaviors and metrics differ across devices.
ADOBE DIGITAL INDEX | Digital Advertising Report Q3 2015 3
4. Key insights
• Digital advertising is not immune to economic forces: As a global economic slowdown in Asia and Europe approaches, paid
search spend growth is declining, up only 2% and 7% YoY, respectively; North America up 17% YoY
• Google vs. Bing and Facebook:
– Google looks to compete head-on with Facebook’s new ad targeting tools and increase key metrics like CTRs; Google paid search CTRs
up 16% YoY, Google display ad CTRs up 25% YoY
– Bing grows paid search spend faster than Google in Europe and Asia, North America was a tie; Bing global YoY spend growth up 17%,
Google global YoY spend growth up 11%
• Last year’s Facebook algorithm change is paying off: Impressions up 10% QoQ, CTR up 30% YoY, and CPC
down 2% YoY
• Social media has become more compelling as RPV increases overall YoY
– Facebook yielded highest RPV for marketers via social, while Reddit realized largest YoY RPV increase (up over 100%)
– Smartphones are the major driver of social RPV growth (up 102% YoY)
• Periscope remains niche, as usage volatility is still driven by “one-off” events: User growth continues to trend up,
but struggles to reach mainstream adoption
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5. Paid search spend growth by region
Paid search spend increased 10% globally with North America
growing the fastest at 17% (likely due to favorable economic
conditions in the U.S).
Marketers are increasing their search spend fairly uniformly
across all regions.
Paid search spend on Google increased 11% YoY globally,
and saw the strongest regional spend increase in
North America (up by 19%).
Bing realized a strong increase in paid search spend in
North America and Europe which is up by 19%.
Both domestically and in most international markets,
marketers have maximized the efficiencies of Google and are
now transitioning their new search spend to fully optimize
paid search services from Bing.
5ADOBE DIGITAL INDEX | Digital Advertising Report Q3 2015
6. Share of paid search spend in North America
6
Google is still dominant platform for paid search in North America.
Yahoo! gradually declines in terms of paid search share.
ADOBE DIGITAL INDEX | Digital Advertising Report Q3 2015
7. Retail registered the largest YoY increase in paid search spend;
up 9% YoY.
Auto industry paid search spend increased by 4% YoY.
Finance sector paid search spend was hovering around 0%
before reaching a dip of -1% change.
Travel industry saw a -3% dip in the paid search spend YoY.
Global paid search spend growth by sector
7ADOBE DIGITAL INDEX | Digital Advertising Report Q3 2015
8. Marketers in North America registered the highest average
growth in paid search optimization with CTR’s up 19%.
CTR growth by search engine & region
8ADOBE DIGITAL INDEX | Digital Advertising Report Q3 2015
Marketers continue to optimize paid search, with Google
CTR’s up 16% YoY; Bing up 7%.
9. Desktop showed the highest increase in paid search efficiency with CTR’s up 11% YoY.
The cost of a paid search campaign via tablet increased the most (up 4% YoY).
CPC and CTR growth by device type
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10. Marketers are paying more for
tablet clicks, with tablet CPC’s
3% higher than desktop CPC’s.
Global paid search CPC comparison by device type
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Smartphone CPC’s are the
cheapest relative to desktop
and tablet CPC’s.
11. Marketers are paying more
for tablet clicks as well, with
tablet CPM’s 5% higher than
desktop CPCMs.
Global display CPM comparison by device type
11ADOBE DIGITAL INDEX | Digital Advertising Report Q3 2015
Smartphone CPM’s are 6%
higher relative to desktop CPM’s.
12. CTR fell 3% YoY.
Paid search CPC and CTR growth: smartphone
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CPC rose 9% YoY.
13. Marketers in North America realized the highest increase in CPC’s up
by 2% YoY. The competition for consumers during the Q4 holiday
season heated up raising CPC’s in North America by 7%.
CPC growth by search engine and region
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Google CPC’s are getting more expensive up
by 12% YoY while Bing CPC’s remained
relatively unchanged, up by 1% YoY.
14. Marketers in the Auto industry showed the highest increase in
optimization, with CTR’s up 32% YoY but also realized the
largest increase in search CPC’s (up 14%).
CTR and CPC growth by sector
14ADOBE DIGITAL INDEX | Digital Advertising Report Q3 2015
15. Display CTR’s are up 14% YoY as marketers increase
optimization in this advertising medium.
Global display ad CPC and CTR growth
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A spread between display
CTR’s and display CPC’s has
widened by about 13%.
16. CPC saw a dip of -2% YoY.
Facebook ad CPC’s and CTR’s
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CTR is up 35% YoY with evidence of
much higher rates for individual brands.
17. Facebook ad impressions has dropped by 13% YoY.
Clicks are up by 7% QoQ.
Signs indicate that Facebook’s desire for higher
quality impressions is paying off as impressions
are slowly recovering from the last quarter.
Facebook paid ad clicks and impressions growth
17ADOBE DIGITAL INDEX | Digital Advertising Report Q3 2015
18. Facebook’s radical approach produced very different metrics compared
to Google’s more incremental approach to display advertising.
Facebook CTR increased 35%.
Google display network CTR is up 25%.
Facebook and Google comparison: CTR’s
18ADOBE DIGITAL INDEX | Digital Advertising Report Q3 2015
19. Periscope continues to grow, but struggles to reach
mainstream adoption.
One single event in India in September increased
usage by almost 4x to peak at 348K streams showing
adoption is still niche.
The other major contributor that week was New York
Fashion week.
Streaming video apps: periscope
19ADOBE DIGITAL INDEX | Digital Advertising Report Q3 2015
20. Interaction rates decreased YoY in major industries.
Retail remains the industry with the highest interaction rates
followed by Travel.
Text posts increased in YoY interaction rates, up 1.2%.
Image and video post interaction rates are down YoY.
Social interaction rate by industry and content type
20ADOBE DIGITAL INDEX | Digital Advertising Report Q3 2015
21. Auto saw the largest increase YoY (up 45%).
Retail sites see a 17% increase YoY.
Finance sites are up 22% YoY.
Social referred visit growth by industry
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22. Search accounts for 44.1% of
referred smartphone traffic.
Share of smartphone visits referred from social
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Social accounts for only 3.2% of
total referred smartphone traffic.
23. Desktop and tablet referred
revenue increased 12% and
9%, respectively.
Social referred revenue growth by device type
23ADOBE DIGITAL INDEX | Digital Advertising Report Q3 2015
Smartphone referred revenue
coming from social networks
increased 102% YoY.
24. Facebook remains the strongest platform
for referred RPV and saw a YoY increase from
$1.16 to $1.24.
Pinterest has increased referred RPV to
$0.74.while Twitter has increased from
$.43 to $.60.
Reddit remains the smallest, but more than
doubled its referred revenue per visit to $0.57.
Revenue per visit by referrer
24ADOBE DIGITAL INDEX | Digital Advertising Report Q3 2015
25. Reddit affiliated social Sadness is
down 17% since July with the majority
of recent sadness now related to outages
of Amazon Web Services.
25ADOBE DIGITAL INDEX | Digital Advertising Report Q3 2015
Reddit CEO’s firing drives sadness
58% of the social buzz was related to sadness and
another 23% to surprise between July 3rd and July 7th.
26. Based on anonymous, aggregated consumer data from Q3 2014 thru Q3 2015 from North America,
Asia Pacific and Europe.
Data came from the following sources:
• Consumer activity on branded sites from Q3 ‘14 – Q3 ‘15
• 900+ billion digital ad impressions from search/social platforms (Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Baidu, Yandex)
• 23+ billion referred social visits from Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, Reddit, YouTube, and LinkedIn
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ADOBE DIGITAL INDEX
Methodology
26ADOBE DIGITAL INDEX | Digital Advertising Report Q3 2015
27. • Acronym definitions: Anonymous and aggregated Adobe Marketing Cloud data (Adobe Media Optimizer, Adobe Analytics,
Adobe Social).
• CPC: Cost-per-click (cost divided by clicks).
• CTR: Click-through-rate (clicks divided by impressions).
• YoY: Year-over-Year (comparing Q3 ‘15 to Q3 ’14).
• QoQ: Quarter-over-Quarter (comparing Q3 ’15 to Q3 ’15).
• Social Interaction Rates: The volume of comments, likes, shares and other interactions with a brand post.
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Glossary
27ADOBE DIGITAL INDEX | Digital Advertising Report Q3 2015
28. 28ADOBE DIGITAL INDEX | Digital Advertising Report Q3 2015
ADOBE DIGITAL INDEX
Tables
Paid Search Spend Growth by Region
Region Q3 2015
Global 10%
North America 17%
Europe 7%
Asia Pacific 2%
Google & Yahoo Paid Search Spend
Growth by Region
Region Google Yahoo
Global 11% 17%
North America 19% 19%
Europe 9% 19%
Asia Pacific 2% 10%
Share of paid search spend in North America
Search Engine Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015
Google 68% 66% 67% 67% 68% 71%
Yahoo! 23% 25% 25% 25% 24% 21%
Other 9% 9% 8% 8% 8% 8%
Global paid search spend in North America
Industry Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015
Auto -5% 0% 16% 10% 9% 4%
Finance 1% 0% 0% 1% 0% -1%
Retail 0% 0% 28% 5% 8% 9%
Travel 4% 0% -19% -1% -4% -3%
CTR growth by search engine
Search Engine Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015
Google 0% 0% 2% 8% 9% 16%
Yahoo! 0% 0% 3% 2% 1% 7%
Paid search CPC and CTR smartphone
METRIC Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015
CPC -5% 0% 9% 5% 10% 3%
CTR 6% 0% -10% -4% -6% 9%
CTR growth by region
Region Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015
North America 3% 0% 2% 9% 10% 19%
Europe 1% 0% 2% 8% 7% 14%
Asia Pacific -2% 0% 1% -1% -2% 6%
CTR growth by device type
Device Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015
Desktop -1% 0% 2% 7% 8% 11%
Smartphone 8% 0% -13% -7% -8% 7%
Tablet -1% 0% 1% 7% 5% 8%
29. 29ADOBE DIGITAL INDEX | Digital Advertising Report Q3 2015
CPC growth by device type
Device Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015
Desktop 0% 0% 5% 1% 5% 3%
Smartphone -6% 0% 9% 6% 10% 2%
Tablet -1% 0% 7% 3% 7% 4%
CPC growth by search engine
Search Engine Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015
Google -1% 0% 6% 2% 7% 1%
Yahoo! 3% 0% 4% 2% 7% 12%
CPC growth by region
Region Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015
North America 0% 0% 7% 1% 6% 2%
Europe 0% 0% 5% 0% 6% 1%
Asia Pacific -4% 0% 4% 4% 5% -2%
CTR growth by sector
Industry Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015
Auto 4% 0% 0% 11% 18% 32%
Finance -1% 0% 4% 10% 4% 11%
Retail 1% 0% 3% 3% 2% 10%
Travel -5% 0% -1% 9% 13% 24%
CPC growth by sector
Industry Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015
Auto -3% 0% 11% 13% 18% 14%
Finance -3% 0% 0% -5% -1% -7%
Retail -3% 0% 6% -1% 5% -1%
Travel 3% 0% 8% 9% 11% 0%
Global ad display CPC and CTR growth
METRIC Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015
CPC 1% 0% 4% -10% -8% -13%
CTR -5% 0% 11% 14% 18% 24%
ADOBE DIGITAL INDEX
Tables
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Facebook ad CPC’s and CTR’s
Device Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015
CPC 5% 0% 16% -3% 6% -2%
CTR -29% 0% 12% 19% 20% 30%
Facebook paid ad clicks and impressions growth
METRIC Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015
CLICKS 0% 0% -2% 7% 3% 7%
IMPRESSIONS 64% 0% -16% -21% -21% -13%
Facebook and Google comparison: CTR’s
METRIC Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015
Facebook -31% 0% 15% 25% 26% 35%
Google -1% 0% 12% 14% 21% 25%
Social referred interaction rate by industry
Industry Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015
Auto 6% 0% 25% 24% 32% 45%
Finance -10% 0% 8% 17% 29% 22%
M&E -7% 0% 16% 55% 50% 32%
Retail -9% 0% 41% 25% 24% 17%
Travel -9% 0% 7% 40% 40% 33%
Social interaction rates by industry
Q3 2014 Q3 2015
Retail 4.8% 3.4%
Media 2.5% 2.2%
Financial 2.4% 2.2%
Travel 3.6% 3.0%
Social interaction rates by content type
Q3 2014 Q3 2015
Video 2.0% 1.7%
Image 4.5% 3.5%
Link 1.2% 1.6%
Text 0.7% 1.2%
Share of visits referred from social
Q2 2014 Q3 2015
Social Networks 1.9% 3.2%
Search 41.1% 44.1%
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Tables
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Social referred revenue growth by device type
Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015
Desktop -11% 0% 36% 15% 7% 9%
Smartphone -17% 0% 77% 76% 100% 102%
Tablet -7% 0% 33% 15% 14% 12%
Revenue per visit by referrer
SN Q3 2014 Q3 2015
Facebook $ 1.16 $ 1.24
Twitter $ 0.43 $ 0.60
Pinterest $ 0.66 $ 0.74
Reditt $ 0.27 $ 0.57
Reddit social sentiment
July 3rd- July 7th July 10th - July 13th July13th-September 30th
Joy 10% 10% 14%
Admiration 7% 10% 15%
Surprise 23% 15% 23%
Sadness 58% 62% 45%
Anticipation 1% 2% 3%
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Tables