ARCHIVES: This is legacy content from before Marketing Dive acquired Mobile Marketer in early 2017. Some information, such as publication dates, may not have migrated over. Check out the new Marketing Dive site for the latest marketing news.

US smartphone search spend jumps 113pc year-over-year: study

Mobile spend continues to grow despite a sluggish start to overall paid search advertising this year, according to a new study from IgnitionOne.

IngitionOne?s first-quarter 2013 report found that marketers should be leveraging mobile search to reach two groups of users ? engaged tablet users and a growing group of smartphone owners. The report also looked at the overall state of paid search in the United States.

?Our Engagement Analysis shows that it is important to understand that users interact and behave differently on different devices and marketers should take this into account when targeting through media and when developing user experience,? said Roger Barnette, president at IgnitionOne, New York.

Search on mobile
Per IgnitionOne?s findings, tablet search spend is up by 112 year-over-year in addition to the 113 percent from smartphones.

Impressions from tablets have skyrocketed by 129 percent year-over-year. Clicks from tablets increased 79 percent in the first quarter of 2013 from 2012.

The cost-per-click from tablets increased a little less than 20 percent year-over-year.

On the smartphone side, impressions increased 27 percent and clicks grew 25 percent from Q1 2012 to Q1 2013. The CPC for smartphones grew by roughly 70 percent.

When it comes to how marketers are splitting up their mobile budgets, 64 percent of spend is being dedicated to tablets with the remaining 36 percent going to smartphones.

The report also digs into the different engagement levels of mobile users by looking at behaviors across a sample of the company?s clients sites. The engagement score measures behavior and conversion tendency.

Per the report, tablet users spend 17 percent more time on sites than PC users. Additionally, tablet owners had a 9 percent higher engagement level than PC consumers.

Although the group represents a larger group of consumers, engagement and time spent on sites from smartphones is lower than tablets.

Smartphone owners spent 4 percent more time on sites than PC users but had a 14 percent lower average engagement score than PC consumers.

Smartphone and tablet owners represented 25 percent of the users across the sample sites. This is an increase from Q3 2012 when mobile owners represented 18 percent of users surveyed.

Tracking a user on mobile devices is a big challenge for marketers. In fact, 59 percent of smartphone users in the study chose not to be tracked. Nine percent of tablet users and 18 percent of PC users opted to not be tracked.
 
Mobile impact
Despite the mobile boom, overall paid search spend in the United States only increased 2 percent in the first-quarter of 2013 compared to the first-quarter of 2012.

This points to marketers increasingly dumping search spend from PC budgets into mobile.

Search spend in January was particulary slow and down 9 percent from 2012. Paid search spend increased 9 percent in February and 11 percent in March year-over-year, though.

Additionally, Yahoo?s Bing increased its presence 11 percent year-over-year to make up 24.4 percent search spend in the U.S.

Google spend decreased by 1 percent year-over-year, but still represents 75.6 percent of spend.

However, the report notes that Yahoo?s growth is based on a smaller base than Google.

On the programmatic display side, spend increased 55 percent year-over-year, representing a 49 percent increase in impressions.

Additionally, the average clearing price for programmatic display ads in Q1 2013 was $1.51, which is a 4 percent increase from Q1 2012.

?While Google's Enhanced Campaign changes rolling out this year, sophisticated marketers will face some challenges targeting on the granular scale they are used to, but we will be working closely with our clients to continue to reach mobile audiences and optimize by device,? Mr. Barnette said.

?We expect to see budgets continue to grow for mobile search and new opportunities for marketers as devices introduce new ways to search for and find information,? he said.

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Marketer, New York