Google Paid Search – Strong Click & Ad Spend Growth in Retail, Travel & Device<\/strong> Types<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\nOverall search ad spend and click growth both accelerated in Q1 2021. Spend increased 20% Y\/Y, reaching its highest growth level of any quarter. Clicks grew 21% Y\/Y while CPC declined 12% Y\/Y.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Google paid search clicks grew 21% and CPC remained virtually flat Y\/Y. Flat CPC growth and strong click growth combined to generate 21% ad spend growth, the highest Y\/Y growth figure of any quarter over the past two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Overall-US-Google-paid-search.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nRetail Industry<\/strong> – Click Growth Strengthened In Q1 <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nIn the retail industry, Google paid search spend growth & click growth soared back to 33% and 30% Y\/Y respectively in the month of January. Retail and consumer goods continued to experience Y\/Y growth across all three metrics from increased e-commerce demand. Other key sectors, including travel and financial services, also contributed positive Y\/Y spend growth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
After dipping to 54% in Q4, Google Shopping’s share of retail clicks rebounded to its prior level of 60% in Q1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\nTravel Industry – Slower But Consistence Improvement<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nGoogle search spending by travel advertisers increased by 5% Y\/Y while click declines Y\/Y improved from 14% in Q4 2020 to 10% in Q1. Financial services posted 2% Y\/Y spend growth, with a higher CPC offsetting a decline in clicks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Paid-search-spend-growth-by-industry-1.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nDevice Types – Phone & Desktop Climbed Up While Tablet Saw The Decline<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nWhile clicks on phones increased 27% year over year, desktop clicks also grew 13% Y\/Y after experiencing 14% growth in Q4. Tablet continued to see Y\/Y click declines, coming in at 13% for Q1. Phones experienced 3% lower CPC Y\/Y, while desktop CPC climbed by 7% Y\/Y.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"Clicks](\"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/clicks-and-cpc-by-device.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nSpending on Google desktop searches was up 22% Y\/Y. Spend growth on phones has reached 23% Y\/Y. Increases on the desktop were driven by a mix of higher clicks and CPC, while mobile phone growth was driven entirely by Y\/Y click improvements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Phones and tablets produced 49% of paid search ad spend in Q1. Phone spend share increased by 1.5 points over Q4, while tablet decreased by 0.8 points. And tablet continues to steadily decline. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If we talk about device share of paid search clicks by platforms, Phones generated 71% of Google search clicks, desktop contributed 27% of clicks. Microsoft showed a nearly opposite trend, with desktop accounting for 69% of clicks and phones generating 25% of clicks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"Device](\"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Device-share-of-paid-search-clicks-by-platforms.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nGoogle Organic Search – Strong To Moderate Growth Overall<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\nTotal year-over-year organic search visit growth decreased to 18% which is below the Q2 2020 peak of 33%, Paid search click growth accelerated in Q1, which may have contributed toward decelerated organic visit growth rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\nRetail Industry<\/strong> – Growth Slowed Down But Still Strong<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nOverall growth for essential retailers slowed by 33% in Q1. Grocery growth remained high at 57% while big-box retailers saw slower growth of 23% Y\/Y. Apparel and non-essential goods saw accelerated growth in Q1 of 4% and 40% respectively. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Retail and consumer goods Y\/Y growth decreased steadily month to month, with January seeing the strongest Y\/Y growth of the quarter at 38%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\nTravel And High Tech\/ B2B Industry – Experienced Large Growth In March 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nTravel and B2B industries were highly impacted in March 2020 by the start of the COVID-19 pandemic but March 2021 bought significant growth to these industries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Insurance growth was stable. Financial services saw single-digit Y\/Y growth during each month of Q1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"Year](\"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Travel-and-other-industries.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nDevice Types – Click-Through Rate Declines While Impression Grew Significantly<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThough CTR (Click Through Rate) declined across all devices, phones fared the best. It showed 45% Y\/Y impression growth with just a 2.4% decrease in CTR. Desktop saw lower impression growth of 23%. Impression on the tablet was nearly flat with CTR down 2.8%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"CTR](\"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/CTR-and-impressions-by-device.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nWith regards to Google organic search visits to brand sites, phone and tablet combined to generate 59% of organic search visits in Q1 2021. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\nAmazon Ads – Sponsored Brand Overpowered Sponsored Products<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\nWhere spending growth for Amazon Sponsored Product ads was nearly flat Y\/Y, Amazon Sponsored Brands ads experienced 29% sales growth Y\/Y. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Clicks continue to grow at a modest rate of 11% for sponsored product ads however, click growth remained similar quarter to quarter, coming in at 38% Y\/Y for Q1 for sponsored brand ads. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"Amazon](\"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Amazon-sponsored-brand-growth.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nImpression growth for sponsored brands far exceeded that of sponsored products. As brands captured significantly more impressions Y\/Y, CTR on Sponsored Brands fell, leading to click growth of 38% Y\/Y.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"Impression](\"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Impression-growth-for-amaon-products.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nSpend share for Amazon sponsored brands accounted for 23%, marking a four-point increase over Q4 whereas sponsored products experienced significantly lower spend growth. Sponsored Display also gained spend share, finishing Q1 at 4%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\nDisplay & Paid Social – Digital Channels & Social Media Platforms Indicated Continuous Growth<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\nSpending on Facebook ads, excluding Instagram, grew 20.7% Y\/Y. Facebook impression growth remained steady at 2.1% Y\/Y. CPM saw higher Y\/Y increases in Q1 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instagram Ad spending increased 57.5% Y\/Y, up from 29.6% in Q4 2020. Instagram accounted for 14% of total Facebook ad spend and 12% of impressions, among brands running on both platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"Instagram](\"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Instagram-share-of-total-facebook-1.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nNew channels like video and audio enclose a significant share of digital media. Accelerated by the pandemic, growth in streaming offerings like Disney+ and Discovery+ are attracting advertisers with measurable media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"digital](\"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Digital-audio-and-video-channel-share.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nSmaller social platforms, like Pinterest, Snapchat, and LinkedIn received lower budgets in Q1 2021. Pinterest received the most comparable budget from quarter to quarter (13.9% in Q4 to 8.4% in Q1), with Snapchat decreasing significantly (from 12.1% to 0.4%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\nOnce again, here<\/a> is the link to download the report and access the findings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nRelated Links<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n- Google Ads Benchmark Report by Tinuiti | Q1 2021 | Key Highlights<\/a><\/li>
- Discover and add negative product targets to Amazon Ads<\/a><\/li>
- How to Set Up Audience Ads in Microsoft Ads<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Merkle released its Digital Marketing Report for the first quarter of 2021. After an unusual holiday season, in 2021, consumers showed continued interest in e-commerce. Travel continued to show improvements and much more. \u00a0We have penned down some of the key findings from the report in this post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ub_ctt_via":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-googl-search-tips"],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Amita","author_link":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/author\/amita\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16061"}],"version-history":[{"count":36,"href":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16111,"href":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16061\/revisions\/16111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nRetail Industry<\/strong> – Click Growth Strengthened In Q1 <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In the retail industry, Google paid search spend growth & click growth soared back to 33% and 30% Y\/Y respectively in the month of January. Retail and consumer goods continued to experience Y\/Y growth across all three metrics from increased e-commerce demand. Other key sectors, including travel and financial services, also contributed positive Y\/Y spend growth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After dipping to 54% in Q4, Google Shopping’s share of retail clicks rebounded to its prior level of 60% in Q1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Travel Industry – Slower But Consistence Improvement<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Google search spending by travel advertisers increased by 5% Y\/Y while click declines Y\/Y improved from 14% in Q4 2020 to 10% in Q1. Financial services posted 2% Y\/Y spend growth, with a higher CPC offsetting a decline in clicks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Device Types – Phone & Desktop Climbed Up While Tablet Saw The Decline<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n While clicks on phones increased 27% year over year, desktop clicks also grew 13% Y\/Y after experiencing 14% growth in Q4. Tablet continued to see Y\/Y click declines, coming in at 13% for Q1. Phones experienced 3% lower CPC Y\/Y, while desktop CPC climbed by 7% Y\/Y. Spending on Google desktop searches was up 22% Y\/Y. Spend growth on phones has reached 23% Y\/Y. Increases on the desktop were driven by a mix of higher clicks and CPC, while mobile phone growth was driven entirely by Y\/Y click improvements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Phones and tablets produced 49% of paid search ad spend in Q1. Phone spend share increased by 1.5 points over Q4, while tablet decreased by 0.8 points. And tablet continues to steadily decline. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If we talk about device share of paid search clicks by platforms, Phones generated 71% of Google search clicks, desktop contributed 27% of clicks. Microsoft showed a nearly opposite trend, with desktop accounting for 69% of clicks and phones generating 25% of clicks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Total year-over-year organic search visit growth decreased to 18% which is below the Q2 2020 peak of 33%, Paid search click growth accelerated in Q1, which may have contributed toward decelerated organic visit growth rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Retail Industry<\/strong> – Growth Slowed Down But Still Strong<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Overall growth for essential retailers slowed by 33% in Q1. Grocery growth remained high at 57% while big-box retailers saw slower growth of 23% Y\/Y. Apparel and non-essential goods saw accelerated growth in Q1 of 4% and 40% respectively. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Retail and consumer goods Y\/Y growth decreased steadily month to month, with January seeing the strongest Y\/Y growth of the quarter at 38%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Travel And High Tech\/ B2B Industry – Experienced Large Growth In March 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Travel and B2B industries were highly impacted in March 2020 by the start of the COVID-19 pandemic but March 2021 bought significant growth to these industries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Insurance growth was stable. Financial services saw single-digit Y\/Y growth during each month of Q1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Device Types – Click-Through Rate Declines While Impression Grew Significantly<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Though CTR (Click Through Rate) declined across all devices, phones fared the best. It showed 45% Y\/Y impression growth with just a 2.4% decrease in CTR. Desktop saw lower impression growth of 23%. Impression on the tablet was nearly flat with CTR down 2.8%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With regards to Google organic search visits to brand sites, phone and tablet combined to generate 59% of organic search visits in Q1 2021. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Where spending growth for Amazon Sponsored Product ads was nearly flat Y\/Y, Amazon Sponsored Brands ads experienced 29% sales growth Y\/Y. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Clicks continue to grow at a modest rate of 11% for sponsored product ads however, click growth remained similar quarter to quarter, coming in at 38% Y\/Y for Q1 for sponsored brand ads. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Impression growth for sponsored brands far exceeded that of sponsored products. As brands captured significantly more impressions Y\/Y, CTR on Sponsored Brands fell, leading to click growth of 38% Y\/Y.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Spend share for Amazon sponsored brands accounted for 23%, marking a four-point increase over Q4 whereas sponsored products experienced significantly lower spend growth. Sponsored Display also gained spend share, finishing Q1 at 4%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Spending on Facebook ads, excluding Instagram, grew 20.7% Y\/Y. Facebook impression growth remained steady at 2.1% Y\/Y. CPM saw higher Y\/Y increases in Q1 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instagram Ad spending increased 57.5% Y\/Y, up from 29.6% in Q4 2020. Instagram accounted for 14% of total Facebook ad spend and 12% of impressions, among brands running on both platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n New channels like video and audio enclose a significant share of digital media. Accelerated by the pandemic, growth in streaming offerings like Disney+ and Discovery+ are attracting advertisers with measurable media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Smaller social platforms, like Pinterest, Snapchat, and LinkedIn received lower budgets in Q1 2021. Pinterest received the most comparable budget from quarter to quarter (13.9% in Q4 to 8.4% in Q1), with Snapchat decreasing significantly (from 12.1% to 0.4%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once again, here<\/a> is the link to download the report and access the findings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Related Links<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Merkle released its Digital Marketing Report for the first quarter of 2021. After an unusual holiday season, in 2021, consumers showed continued interest in e-commerce. Travel continued to show improvements and much more. \u00a0We have penned down some of the key findings from the report in this post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ub_ctt_via":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-googl-search-tips"],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Amita","author_link":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/author\/amita\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16061"}],"version-history":[{"count":36,"href":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16111,"href":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16061\/revisions\/16111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karooya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nGoogle Organic Search – Strong To Moderate Growth Overall<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nAmazon Ads – Sponsored Brand Overpowered Sponsored Products<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nDisplay & Paid Social – Digital Channels & Social Media Platforms Indicated Continuous Growth<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n