Mobile Now 12 Percent Of All Paid Search Impressions

Earlier today Performics reported another mobile search milestone: “mobile paid search traffic is now 12% of all paid search impressions (mobile + desktop), while mobile clicks are about to cross the 12% threshold.” The search-marketing firm based this report on aggregated client data from 1H 2011.

Mobile by itself, excluding tablets, is about 10 percent of search impressions. Tablets account for almost 2% of all paid search impressions and roughly 14% of all mobile impressions. Thus mobile + tablets = 12 percent of overall paid search impressions.

Here are some other findings from Performics’ data dive:

• Mobile clicks represent 11.9% of all paid search clicks (June). Tablets account for  13.3% of all mobile clicks.
• CTR: Mobile and tablet devices have caught up in the past two months with the PC for CTR. (However other data show higher mobile CTRs vs. PC)
• PPC: “Mobile and tablet[s] . . . continue to track significantly below desktops”

There’s an interesting discussion of dayparting, comparing mobile, PC and tablet usage:

Initial tablet search behavior by time of day closely resembles existing mobile habits—usage peaks during off-work hours.  While PC searches peak between the hours of 9AM and 5PM, mobile and tablet usage peaks between the hours of 5PM and 10PM.  However, while mobile devices also see moderately strong search usage between the hours of 11AM and 5PM, tablet devices are almost exclusively restricted to the evening period.

Tablets and mobile device usage complement PC search according to Performics. However tablets “are almost exclusively restricted to the evening period.” There are other data that argue, not necessarily directly contradicting Performics, that tablets cannibalize PC usage.

To summarize, then, Performics says that mobile volumes and CTR are growing, while PPC prices are below desktop levels. This suggests a “buying opportunity” to me.