Methodology

We sampled the Marin Global Online Advertising Index, which looks at over $7.8 billion worth of spend in the Marin platform. The Index primarily consists of enterprise-class marketers—larger advertisers and agencies that spend in excess of $1 million annually on paid-search, display, social, and mobile. As such, our data sample and findings skew toward the behavior of larger organizations and seasoned advertisers.

We kept the study longitudinal by focusing on a representative set of global advertisers who’ve been active on Marin for the previous five quarters, and measuring key performance indicators (KPIs) on a year over year (YoY) and quarter over quarter (QoQ) basis. This could result in slight variations in prior-quarter data that we’ve reported previously, but will make the analysis and findings more representative as we move forward.

Findings

In Q2, there was a continued, gradual slide toward mobile. When we looked at QoQ data, mobile device share slightly flattened across search and social. In contrast, YoY trends showed steady movement away from desktop toward smartphone. The most prominent QoQ change was in display, which has experienced large shifts toward smartphone since Q1.

Search

Over the last quarter, mobile search advertising slightly decreased, while there was a notable shift back to desktop search for conversions. However, YoY, device share continued to move away from desktop toward smartphone, with tablet share being relatively flat. Last quarter, we predicted stabilization in the mobile–desktop split, and this further verifies our findings. Impressions, clicks, and spend all hovered around the 50-50 split between desktop and mobile. Search spend is well on the way to reach predictions of 50% mobile this year, with the first half of 2016 already fluctuating around the halfway mark.

Display

For display advertisers this quarter, there were large shifts away from desktop when compared to Q1. Smartphone took the lead across all metrics for device share. YoY in the second quarters, we saw a much larger shift when compared to YoY for the first quarters, with almost all device share moving away from desktop to smartphone.

Social

Activity was slower in social advertising, with smaller movements when compared to display or search. There’s still a gentle lean toward mobile, but this has lessened YoY when compared to last quarter. Mobile overwhelmingly remains the device of choice for social advertisers and users.

CTR, CPC,and Conversion Rates

We also benchmarked customer engagement and interaction during Q2, looking at click-through rates (CTR), cost per clicks (CPC), and conversion rates for any unusual changes over the past year.

CTRs haven’t changed much QoQ. Smartphone CTR on search dipped below tablet, although all three devices have CTRs within spitting distance of each other. There doesn’t appear to be a clear reason for this, but small shifts occur every quarter. CTRs have dropped a little across all three channels, but nothing significant. This behavior is typical for Q2, which tends to be slower and less active than other quarters. In the social channel, smartphone and tablet data are combined due to the way the data is formatted.

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Generally, Q2 CPC behavior mirrored Q1. However, there is one major difference in display. CPC for tablet display fell, and is now lower than desktop display. This is a shift in tablet display rather than desktop display, as desktop display CPC remains at relatively the same levels compared with other channels. Smartphone search CPC continues to be behind tablet search, reinforcing what we saw last quarter— this behavior is a “new normal” for the search channel. These shifts are reflective of conversion rates, where desktop and tablet show higher conversion rates than smartphone.

Conversion rates continued to be a reflection of CPC—high conversion rates reflect high CPC, and vice versa. Display conversion rates continue to trend downward, while search and social remained flat compared to Q1. Again, mobile tablet and smartphone data are combined here.

Key Takeaways

1. The move to mobile is gradually slowing down. Across two channels, the shift away from desktop has been slowing for the last two quarters. Search and social device share are decelerating, and seem to be approaching a stability point. Display is the only channel that’s still seeing strong shifts toward mobile over the past quarter for both advertisers and users.
2. Smartphone and desktop are the devices of choice. The tablet revolution never took off and continues to shrink. Instead, it was co-opted by its sibling device, the smartphone. For the foreseeable future, smartphone and desktop are the two largest winners.
3. Advertisers should continue to prioritize cross-channel, cross-device targeting. In order for advertisers to employ a robust cross-channel, crossdevice marketing approach, we recommend that they continue to learn the strengths and weaknesses of these channels and devices. For instance, if a search advertiser is seeing diminishing returns on their search campaigns, they could remedy this by moving funds to either their social or display platforms. A more holistic approach to digital marketing that targets across all channels and devices will help today’s marketers get a bigger bang for the buck. While it’s industry norm for marketers to have a web-centric mindset for their campaigns, they’ll be in a position of strength if they take on an app-centric approach as mobile grows in importance.