Reports: Mobile Search Impressions Explode, CTRs Beat PC

A couple of Q4 2011 reports released this week from Marin Software and IgnitionOne show, among other things, the dramatic growth of mobile paid search advertising. According to the IgnitionOne document, the “mobile [paid] search ad spend is up 269% YoY and impressions are up 317%.” IgnitionOne said that among its retail clients, “Mobile search […]

Chat with SearchBot

A couple of Q4 2011 reports released this week from Marin Software and IgnitionOne show, among other things, the dramatic growth of mobile paid search advertising. According to the IgnitionOne document, the “mobile [paid] search ad spend is up 269% YoY and impressions are up 317%.”

IgnitionOne said that among its retail clients, “Mobile search [  ] accounted for 24% of retailers’ total paid search budgets on Black Friday, compared to 14.2% of the total during all of Q4. This represents enormous growth compared to Q4 2010, when mobile search spend accounted for only 5.2% of total retail paid search spend.”

The following chart from IgnitionOne shows the growth of mobile impressions, clicks and search ad spend vs. 2010.

Screen Shot 2012 01 11 At 11.27.54 AM

The Marin Software report says the company is seeing increased adoption of mobile and tablet advertising among its clients. More significantly, however, its clients’ campaigns on mobile are “showing significantly better performance than similar campaigns on desktop computers.”

Marin published comparisons for its aggregated search campaigns across PC and mobile. As the chart below indicates, paid search ads on smartphones and tablets outperformed those on the PC in terms of CTRs.

Screen Shot 2012 01 11 At 11.23.49 AM


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Greg Sterling
Contributor
Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land, a member of the programming team for SMX events and the VP, Market Insights at Uberall.

Get the must-read newsletter for search marketers.