adobe digital index’s q3 digital advertising & social intelligence report

DIGITAL ADVERTISING REPORT ADOBE DIGITAL INDEX Q3 2015

Table of contents

ADOBE DIGITAL INDEX | Digital Advertising Report Q3 2015 2

Charts 03 Overview

04 Key insights

05 Paid search spend growth by region

06 Share of paid search spend in North America

07 Global paid search spend growth by sector 08 CTR growth by search engine and region

09 CPC and CTR growth by device type

10 Global paid search CPC comparison by device type

11 Global display CPM comparison by device type

12 Paid search CPC and CTR growth: smartphone 13 CPC growth by search engine and region

14 CTR and CPC growth by sector

Appendix

26 Methodology

27 Glossary

28 Tables

15 Global display ad CPC and CTR growth

16 Facebook ad CPC’s and CTR’s

17 Facebook paid ad clicks and impressions growth

18 Facebook and Google comparison: CTR’s

19 Streaming video apps: periscope 20 Social interaction rate by industry and content type

21 Social referred visit growth by industry

22 Share of smartphone visits referred from social

23 Social referred revenue growth by device type

24 Revenue per visit by referrer 25 Reddit CEO’s firing drives sadness

Overview This report covers a broad range of information from the digital advertising industry with insights centered around search engine marketing. Topics include: •  Insights around Google’s search and display business. •  Search engine spend, click-through-rates (CTR), and cost-per-click (CPC) across different regions, search engines, and devices. •  How search behaviors and metrics differ across devices.

•  How social behaviors and metrics differ across devices.


Key insights •  Digital advertising is not immune to economic forces: As a global economic slowdown in Asia and Europe approaches, paid

search spend growth is declining, up only 2% and 7% YoY, respectively; North America up 17% YoY

•  Google vs. Bing and Facebook: –  Google looks to compete head-on with Facebook’s new ad targeting tools and increase key metrics like CTRs; Google paid search CTRs

up 16% YoY, Google display ad CTRs up 25% YoY

–  Bing grows paid search spend faster than Google in Europe and Asia, North America was a tie; Bing global YoY spend growth up 17%, Google global YoY spend growth up 11%

•  Last year’s Facebook algorithm change is paying off: Impressions up 10% QoQ, CTR up 30% YoY, and CPC down 2% YoY

•  Social media has become more compelling as RPV increases overall YoY

–  Facebook yielded highest RPV for marketers via social, while Reddit realized largest YoY RPV increase (up over 100%)

–  Smartphones are the major driver of social RPV growth (up 102% YoY)

•  Periscope remains niche, as usage volatility is still driven by “one-off” events: User growth continues to trend up, but struggles to reach mainstream adoption


Paid search spend growth by region Paid search spend increased 10% globally with North America growing the fastest at 17% (likely due to favorable economic conditions in the U.S).

Marketers are increasing their search spend fairly uniformly across all regions. Paid search spend on Google increased 11% YoY globally, and saw the strongest regional spend increase in North America (up by 19%).

Bing realized a strong increase in paid search spend in North America and Europe which is up by 19%.

Both domestically and in most international markets, marketers have maximized the efficiencies of Google and are now transitioning their new search spend to fully optimize paid search services from Bing.

5 ADOBE DIGITAL INDEX | Digital Advertising Report Q3 2015

Share of paid search spend in North America

6

Google is still dominant platform for paid search in North America. Yahoo! gradually declines in terms of paid search share.

ADOBE DIGITAL INDEX | Digital Advertising Report Q3 2015

Retail registered the largest YoY increase in paid search spend; up 9% YoY. Auto industry paid search spend increased by 4% YoY.

Finance sector paid search spend was hovering around 0% before reaching a dip of -1% change.

Travel industry saw a -3% dip in the paid search spend YoY.

Global paid search spend growth by sector


Marketers in North America registered the highest average growth in paid search optimization with CTR’s up 19%.

CTR growth by search engine & region


Marketers continue to optimize paid search, with Google CTR’s up 16% YoY; Bing up 7%.

Desktop showed the highest increase in paid search efficiency with CTR’s up 11% YoY. The cost of a paid search campaign via tablet increased the most (up 4% YoY).

CPC and CTR growth by device type


Marketers are paying more for tablet clicks, with tablet CPC’s 3% higher than desktop CPC’s.

Global paid search CPC comparison by device type


Smartphone CPC’s are the cheapest relative to desktop

and tablet CPC’s.

Marketers are paying more for tablet clicks as well, with tablet CPM’s 5% higher than desktop CPCMs.

Global display CPM comparison by device type


Smartphone CPM’s are 6% higher relative to desktop CPM’s.

CTR fell 3% YoY.

Paid search CPC and CTR growth: smartphone


CPC rose 9% YoY.

Marketers in North America realized the highest increase in CPC’s up by 2% YoY. The competition for consumers during the Q4 holiday

season heated up raising CPC’s in North America by 7%.

CPC growth by search engine and region


Google CPC’s are getting more expensive up by 12% YoY while Bing CPC’s remained

relatively unchanged, up by 1% YoY.

Marketers in the Auto industry showed the highest increase in optimization, with CTR’s up 32% YoY but also realized the largest increase in search CPC’s (up 14%).

CTR and CPC growth by sector


Display CTR’s are up 14% YoY as marketers increase optimization in this advertising medium.

Global display ad CPC and CTR growth


A spread between display CTR’s and display CPC’s has widened by about 13%.

CPC saw a dip of -2% YoY.

Facebook ad CPC’s and CTR’s


CTR is up 35% YoY with evidence of much higher rates for individual brands.

Facebook ad impressions has dropped by 13% YoY. Clicks are up by 7% QoQ. Signs indicate that Facebook’s desire for higher quality impressions is paying off as impressions are slowly recovering from the last quarter.

Facebook paid ad clicks and impressions growth


Facebook’s radical approach produced very different metrics compared to Google’s more incremental approach to display advertising. Facebook CTR increased 35%. Google display network CTR is up 25%.

Facebook and Google comparison: CTR’s


Periscope continues to grow, but struggles to reach mainstream adoption. One single event in India in September increased usage by almost 4x to peak at 348K streams showing adoption is still niche. The other major contributor that week was New York Fashion week.

Streaming video apps: periscope


Interaction rates decreased YoY in major industries. Retail remains the industry with the highest interaction rates followed by Travel. Text posts increased in YoY interaction rates, up 1.2%. Image and video post interaction rates are down YoY.

Social interaction rate by industry and content type


Auto saw the largest increase YoY (up 45%). Retail sites see a 17% increase YoY. Finance sites are up 22% YoY.

Social referred visit growth by industry


Search accounts for 44.1% of referred smartphone traffic.

Share of smartphone visits referred from social


Social accounts for only 3.2% of total referred smartphone traffic.

Desktop and tablet referred revenue increased 12% and 9%, respectively.

Social referred revenue growth by device type


Smartphone referred revenue coming from social networks increased 102% YoY.

Facebook remains the strongest platform for referred RPV and saw a YoY increase from $1.16 to $1.24. Pinterest has increased referred RPV to $0.74.while Twitter has increased from $.43 to $.60. Reddit remains the smallest, but more than doubled its referred revenue per visit to $0.57.

Revenue per visit by referrer


Reddit affiliated social Sadness is down 17% since July with the majority of recent sadness now related to outages of Amazon Web Services.


Reddit CEO’s firing drives sadness

58% of the social buzz was related to sadness and another 23% to surprise between July 3rd and July 7th.

Based on anonymous, aggregated consumer data from Q3 2014 thru Q3 2015 from North America, Asia Pacific and Europe. Data came from the following sources: •  Consumer activity on branded sites from Q3 ‘14 – Q3 ‘15 •  900+ billion digital ad impressions from search/social platforms (Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Baidu, Yandex) •  23+ billion referred social visits from Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, Reddit, YouTube, and LinkedIn

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ADOBE DIGITAL INDEX Methodology


•  Acronym definitions: Anonymous and aggregated Adobe Marketing Cloud data (Adobe Media Optimizer, Adobe Analytics, Adobe Social).

•  CPC: Cost-per-click (cost divided by clicks).

•  CTR: Click-through-rate (clicks divided by impressions).

•  YoY: Year-over-Year (comparing Q3 ‘15 to Q3 ’14).

•  QoQ: Quarter-over-Quarter (comparing Q3 ’15 to Q3 ’15).

•  Social Interaction Rates: The volume of comments, likes, shares and other interactions with a brand post.

ADOBE DIGITAL INDEX Glossary



ADOBE DIGITAL INDEX Tables

Paid Search Spend Growth by Region Region Q3 2015 Global 10% North America 17% Europe 7% Asia Pacific 2%

Google & Yahoo Paid Search Spend Growth by Region Region Google Yahoo Global 11% 17% North America 19% 19% Europe 9% 19% Asia Pacific 2% 10%

Share of paid search spend in North America

Search Engine Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015

Google 68% 66% 67% 67% 68% 71%

Yahoo! 23% 25% 25% 25% 24% 21%

Other 9% 9% 8% 8% 8% 8%

Global paid search spend in North America

Industry Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015

Auto -5% 0% 16% 10% 9% 4%

Finance 1% 0% 0% 1% 0% -1%

Retail 0% 0% 28% 5% 8% 9%

Travel 4% 0% -19% -1% -4% -3%

CTR growth by search engine


Google 0% 0% 2% 8% 9% 16%

Yahoo! 0% 0% 3% 2% 1% 7%

Paid search CPC and CTR smartphone

METRIC Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015

CPC -5% 0% 9% 5% 10% 3%

CTR 6% 0% -10% -4% -6% 9%

CTR growth by region

Region Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015

North America 3% 0% 2% 9% 10% 19%

Europe 1% 0% 2% 8% 7% 14%

Asia Pacific -2% 0% 1% -1% -2% 6%

CTR growth by device type

Device Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015

Desktop -1% 0% 2% 7% 8% 11%

Smartphone 8% 0% -13% -7% -8% 7%

Tablet -1% 0% 1% 7% 5% 8%


CPC growth by device type

Device Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015

Desktop 0% 0% 5% 1% 5% 3%

Smartphone -6% 0% 9% 6% 10% 2%

Tablet -1% 0% 7% 3% 7% 4%

CPC growth by search engine


Google -1% 0% 6% 2% 7% 1%

Yahoo! 3% 0% 4% 2% 7% 12%

CPC growth by region

Region Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015

North America 0% 0% 7% 1% 6% 2%

Europe 0% 0% 5% 0% 6% 1%

Asia Pacific -4% 0% 4% 4% 5% -2%

CTR growth by sector

Industry Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015

Auto 4% 0% 0% 11% 18% 32%

Finance -1% 0% 4% 10% 4% 11%

Retail 1% 0% 3% 3% 2% 10%

Travel -5% 0% -1% 9% 13% 24%

CPC growth by sector

Industry Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015

Auto -3% 0% 11% 13% 18% 14%

Finance -3% 0% 0% -5% -1% -7%

Retail -3% 0% 6% -1% 5% -1%

Travel 3% 0% 8% 9% 11% 0%

Global ad display CPC and CTR growth

METRIC Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015

CPC 1% 0% 4% -10% -8% -13%

CTR -5% 0% 11% 14% 18% 24%



Facebook ad CPC’s and CTR’s

Device Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015

CPC 5% 0% 16% -3% 6% -2%

CTR -29% 0% 12% 19% 20% 30%

Facebook paid ad clicks and impressions growth

METRIC Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015

CLICKS 0% 0% -2% 7% 3% 7%

IMPRESSIONS 64% 0% -16% -21% -21% -13%

Facebook and Google comparison: CTR’s

METRIC Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015

Facebook -31% 0% 15% 25% 26% 35%

Google -1% 0% 12% 14% 21% 25%

Social referred interaction rate by industry

Industry Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015

Auto 6% 0% 25% 24% 32% 45%

Finance -10% 0% 8% 17% 29% 22%

M&E -7% 0% 16% 55% 50% 32%

Retail -9% 0% 41% 25% 24% 17%

Travel -9% 0% 7% 40% 40% 33%

Social interaction rates by industry Q3 2014 Q3 2015

Retail 4.8% 3.4% Media 2.5% 2.2% Financial 2.4% 2.2% Travel 3.6% 3.0%

Social interaction rates by content type Q3 2014 Q3 2015

Video 2.0% 1.7% Image 4.5% 3.5% Link 1.2% 1.6% Text 0.7% 1.2%

Share of visits referred from social Q2 2014 Q3 2015

Social Networks 1.9% 3.2% Search 41.1% 44.1%



Social referred revenue growth by device type

Q2 2014 Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015

Desktop -11% 0% 36% 15% 7% 9%

Smartphone -17% 0% 77% 76% 100% 102%

Tablet -7% 0% 33% 15% 14% 12%

Revenue per visit by referrer SN Q3 2014 Q3 2015 Facebook $ 1.16 $ 1.24 Twitter $ 0.43 $ 0.60 Pinterest $ 0.66 $ 0.74 Reditt $ 0.27 $ 0.57

Reddit social sentiment

July 3rd- July 7th July 10th - July 13th July13th-September 30th

Joy 10% 10% 14%

Admiration 7% 10% 15%

Surprise 23% 15% 23%

Sadness 58% 62% 45%

Anticipation 1% 2% 3%



Social report periscope 1-Mar-15 2-Mar-15 3-Mar-15 4-Mar-15 5-Mar-15 6-Mar-15 7-Mar-15 8-Mar-15 9-Mar-15 10-Mar-15 11-Mar-15 12-Mar-15 13-Mar-15 14-Mar-15 15-Mar-15 16-Mar-15 17-Mar-15 18-Mar-15 19-Mar-15 20-Mar-15 21-Mar-15

31 62 53 957 1,333 130 67 83 5,056 5,381 1,571 732 5,663 2,556 1,077 1,590 624 549 511 307 219


22-Mar-15 23-Mar-15 24-Mar-15 25-Mar-15 26-Mar-15 27-Mar-15 28-Mar-15 29-Mar-15 30-Mar-15 31-Mar-15 1-Apr-15 2-Apr-15 3-Apr-15 4-Apr-15 5-Apr-15 6-Apr-15 7-Apr-15 8-Apr-15 9-Apr-15 10-Apr-15 11-Apr-15

571 334 488 352 121,209 90,313 162,090 44,994 41,407 42,238 41,263 39,140 36,647 36,175 25,666 29,633 31,966 41,318 39,440 41,652 41,171

12-Apr-15 13-Apr-15 14-Apr-15 15-Apr-15 16-Apr-15 17-Apr-15 18-Apr-15 19-Apr-15 20-Apr-15 21-Apr-15 22-Apr-15 23-Apr-15 24-Apr-15 25-Apr-15 26-Apr-15 27-Apr-15 28-Apr-15 29-Apr-15 30-Apr-15 1-May-15 2-May-15

34,917 37,092 39,774 42,558 39,586 46,804 41,007 34,816 33,459 34,555 42,558 38,172 48,408 50,432 35,823 33,937 41,373 47,793 69,107 79,912 85,242

3-May-15 4-May-15 5-May-15 6-May-15 7-May-15 8-May-15 9-May-15 10-May-15 11-May-15 12-May-15 13-May-15 14-May-15 15-May-15 16-May-15 17-May-15 18-May-15 19-May-15 20-May-15 21-May-15 22-May-15 23-May-15

61,978 63,384 68,013 76,034 70770 71,844 75,371 57,152 61426 73123 71085 70512 71029 72657 55055 49178 56060 57109 61321 62406 73956

24-May-15 25-May-15 26-May-15 27-May-15 28-May-15 29-May-15 30-May-15 31-May-15 1-Jun-15 2-Jun-15 3-Jun-15 4-Jun-15 5-Jun-15 6-Jun-15 7-Jun-15 8-Jun-15 9-Jun-15 10-Jun-15 11-Jun-15 12-Jun-15 13-Jun-15

62143 54411 108380 89865 87586 89833 96948 96891 80985 86,996 82,001 91,744 112,309 117,076 97,171 83,643 92,246 102,211 105,918 113,574 121,431

14-Jun-15 15-Jun-15 16-Jun-15 17-Jun-15 18-Jun-15 19-Jun-15 20-Jun-15 21-Jun-15 22-Jun-15 23-Jun-15 24-Jun-15 25-Jun-15 26-Jun-15 27-Jun-15 28-Jun-15 29-Jun-15 30-Jun-15 1-Jul-15 2-Jul-15 3-Jul-15 4-Jul-15

92,473 89,353 97,879 98,781 102,328 118,373 123,603 99,582 92,402 104,517 112,545 114,706 120,556 128,503 118,920 102,813 108,151 107,088 122,607 128,048 138,329

5-Jul-15 6-Jul-15 7-Jul-15 8-Jul-15 9-Jul-15 10-Jul-15 11-Jul-15 12-Jul-15 13-Jul-15 14-Jul-15 15-Jul-15 16-Jul-15 17-Jul-15 18-Jul-15 19-Jul-15 20-Jul-15 21-Jul-15 22-Jul-15 23-Jul-15 24-Jul-15 25-Jul-15

104,599 104,743 113,210 121,296 132,563 139,485 146,739 118,147 117,999 134,593 140,988 138,894 138,699 141,425 118,845 119,058 130,885 135,952 149,769 155,800 165,489


Social report periscope (continue) 26-Jul-15 27-Jul-15 28-Jul-15 29-Jul-15 30-Jul-15 31-Jul-15 1-Aug-15 2-Aug-15 3-Aug-15 4-Aug-15 5-Aug-15 6-Aug-15 7-Aug-15 8-Aug-15 9-Aug-15 10-Aug-15 11-Aug-15 12-Aug-15 13-Aug-15 14-Aug-15 15-Aug-15

135,279 126,342 145,925 146,766 143,615 149,524 154,045 127,600 129,559 140,632 142,315 144,860 146,700 152,534 125,718 128,713 132,317 145,937 149,163 148,645 156,814


16-Aug-15 17-Aug-15 18-Aug-15 19-Aug-15 20-Aug-15 21-Aug-15 22-Aug-15 23-Aug-15 24-Aug-15 25-Aug-15 26-Aug-15 27-Aug-15 28-Aug-15 29-Aug-15 30-Aug-15 31-Aug-15 1-Sep-15 2-Sep-15 3-Sep-15 4-Sep-15 5-Sep-15

130,359 124,415 128,443 138,470 141,973 146,912 153,239 132,840 123,481 131,834 137,161 148,659 150,489 155,212 134,015 115,081 123,203 133,026 139,452 151,569 155,022

6-Sep-15 7-Sep-15 8-Sep-15 9-Sep-15 10-Sep-15 11-Sep-15 12-Sep-15 13-Sep-15 14-Sep-15 15-Sep-15 16-Sep-15 17-Sep-15 18-Sep-15 19-Sep-15 20-Sep-15 21-Sep-15 22-Sep-15 23-Sep-15 24-Sep-15 25-Sep-15 26-Sep-15

138,376 114,370 130,497 141,251 162,961 236,027 348,403 236,918 187,540 203,171 156,613 199,206 193,951 190,277 134,993 123,860 155,608 155,787 164,810 176,546 219,638

27-Sep-15 28-Sep-15 29-Sep-15 30-Sep-15

191,156 151,194 157,326 177,567