With the rapid growth of mobile browsing on tablets and smart phones over the past several years it is no surprise that they have quickly become a major factor for digital advertising. What may surprise some people, however, is that according to a new study from Marin Software, mobile ads will drive more than 50% of Google’s paid search clicks by the end of 2015.
The study shows that throughout 2013 the amount of smart phone paid search ad traffic almost doubled, bringing it to 20% of the total click share for digital marketing. Tablet click share also went from 9.6% in January of 2013 to 13.9% in December, growth of about 30%. The trend is continuing more and more toward not only mobile browsing, but also mobile purchases, which is why more and more ad dollars are being directed toward mobile.
Matt Ackley, Chief Marketing Officer at Marian Software commented, “We’re at a cusp of mobile becoming the dominant channel in search marketing. Consumers are becoming much more comfortable using their smartphones and tablets to complete transaction online, and as we see that comfort level rise advertisers will follow suit with continued investment and optimization in mobile.”
Google isn’t the only company that is moving more and more toward mobile for their ad clicks though. Facebook and Twitter have both made big adjustments to their mobile apps over the past year so they could display more ads, and better quality ads. This trend is likely to continue with all the big mobile players, as well as ad networks.
Another reason the report found for the increased ad spend is that the conversion rate on mobile devices, especially tablets, is going up as well. In 2013, tablets had an average conversion rate of 5.5%, which just edged out desktop computers (5.3%) for the first time. Smart phone conversion lags behind at 4.4%, though that had also shown an improvement.
The full study from Marin is available HERE.
