Search Campaigns See Rising Return On Investments In Second-Quarter 2016

by , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, (July 08, 2016)

Search Campaigns See Rising Return On Investments In Second-Quarter 2016

Click-through rates (CTRs) will have the biggest impact from Google’s decision to expand the number of characters in its AdWords paid-search text ads, according to research released Thursday.

Research from Hanapin Marketing suggests that 70% of the 250 marketers participating in the Q2 2016 Search Marketplace Report say n expanded headline will have the biggest impact on CTRs. Some 25% point to the description, and 5%, to the display URL path.

Google announced in May that it would expand the number of characters allotted in AdWords text ads. Headlines would expand up to 30 characters and descriptions would expand up to 80 characters. And the display URL can include up to two director paths that advertisers can use to describe landing page content.

The data for the findings, aggregated from Hanapin’s U. S. accounts, includes more than 100 million ad clicks. Sixty percent of the data is from desktop, 30% from mobile, and 10% from tablet campaigns mostly running on Google AdWords and Microsoft Bing, except when otherwise specified.

The data in the report does not include display or content network data — it is only search campaigns, and it is based on the company’s clients advertising investments at the agency as well as polls hosted on its blog.

The return on ad spend (ROAS) rose again in second-quarter 2016, per the findings. About half of 205 accounts analyzed for the report were ecommerce accounts. Total revenue rose about 8% quarter over quarter, while ROAS is up 27% year-on-year.

Investments in conversion rate optimization (CRO), improvements in Shopping Campaigns, and better mobile performance are the primary drivers for the increase in performance.

Overall, the average cost per click (CPC) across all accounts rose 5.5% in second-quarter 2016, compared with the first quarter of this year. CPCs are still below the peak of $3.15 in second-quarter 2015 — down 4% from second-quarter 2015 — but rose more than 40% compared with the same quarter in 2014, per the findings.

The data also suggests that in second-quarter 2016, about 34% of the conversions across the 205 accounts came from mobile devices, up from 15% in second-quarter 2015. Hanapin has seen an increase in conversion rates on mobile devices, even for non-mobile optimized sites.

However, mobile-specific CPCs fell to $1.15 in 2016 from $1.35 in 2015. Mobile conversions more than doubled in second-quarter 2016 compared with the year-ago quarter. Hanapin saw in second-quarter 2016 that desktop campaigns converted at a rate of 56%, compared with 75% in second-quarter 2015. Mobile conversions saw 34% in second-quarter 2016 vs. 15% in 2015, and tablets converted at a rate of 10% in second-quarter 2016 vs. 10% in second-quarter 2015.

 

MediaPost.com: Search Marketing Daily

(7)