US, Europe, and Worldwide ad clickthrough rates statistics comparing display ads to paid social and Google Ads average CTRs

I've put this compilation together to help marketing professionals create direct response conversion models for digital marketing campaigns. Through creating budget models using known benchmarks for average CTRs s and digital media click through costs, you can better forecast your return-on-investment from digital media ads. This data is particularly useful if you haven't previously invested in advertising on publisher sites through ad networks or paid social media ads since it can help make the case and set expectations with colleagues or clients of the number of visits based on quantitative forecasts. To learn more about online advertising options across you can download our Digital Media Options Cheatsheet to check techniques you may be missing out on.

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Average CTR benchmarks - February 2021 update

Through 2021  we will update our statistics summaries with the…

Chart of the day: Digital Ad Spend grows at fastest rate in  9 years

Recommended link: Latest UK online advertising spend research - IAB In April each year the IAB and PwC publish their regular survey giving full-year figures for online advertising in the previous year. We recommend using this annual research on online advertising to benchmark your investment in online media with other organisations in the UK at a top level. The main headline from this years analysis which should prompt review of which channels are being used to engage audiences is about mobile.

Driven by advertisers’ need to tap into people’s rising use of mobile to watch content, digital advertising grew at its fastest rate for nine years – by 17.3% to £10.3 billion in 2016 – according to the Internet Advertising Bureau UK / PwC Digital Adspend report. The last time annual growth was higher…

Did you know that over half of display ads aren't viewable

The lesson is to choose the right media companies with better viewability, particularly when paying on a cost per thousand basis. Apparently it's nothing new that 56% of display ad impressions across Google's platforms aren't viewable and has been brought to the forefront, by the recent research from Google, Google's Infographic provides insight into 5 key factors to help you maximise your ad visibility; covering the importance of ad sizes and page position.

So what does this mean for Advertisers?

There are going to be more stringent guidelines and some may be struck off if they don't provide above 50% viewability. If you are advertising, it's recommended to plan and research, looking at your viewability inventory, which you can measure with Google's measurement tool, Active View…

New research shows a significant multiplier effect from combining search and social media advertising

This research summarises how some advertisers are making their online media buys more effective by integrating social and search campaigns together. Marin Software surveyed over 200 Advertisers, managing Google, Facebook and Bing campaigns and their report reveals tactics and strategies that have worked for leading brands. As we would expect from the theory of the 4Cs of integrated communications, the findings showed that 'marketers who integrate their search and social advertising programs find significantly more consumers who are not only more likely to convert, but who are also likely to spend more'. This multichannel research showed that advertisers achieve a 68% higher conversion rate when their search campaigns are integrated with social advertising. Download their full research on integrating search and social media advertising (registration is required) to find…

AdID to replace ad tracking through third-party cookies?

Importance: [rating=5] Potentially… Recommended link: USA Today Article: Google may ditch ‘cookies’ as online ad tracker This is an interesting one to watch for in 2014… USA Today has spoken to "a source at Google who says that the company is developing a technology called AdID which could replace the third-party cookie for Ad targeting and tracking across Ad networks such as Google Display Network / AdWords Remarketing. USA Today is the only original source for this disclosure. The source said: “The AdID would be transmitted to advertisers and ad networks that have agreed to basic guidelines, giving consumers more privacy and control over how they browse the Web”. Google apparently plans to consult with privacy and industry groups and it seems this leak to USA Today is the first part of this. The paper is short on technical…

New Nielsen research reviews investment and ROI from social media

Nielsen have shared some recent interesting findings from their research on Paid Social Media Advertising 2013.  500 Digital Marketing and Media Professionals were contacted by phone and email, and asked for their views and practices on social media advertising. The report concludes:

'Marketers are increasingly viewing and using paid social media advertising as an integrated tool. Social media is no longer being viewed as its own discrete medium but instead used alongside other tactics to achieve an overall, usually branding related, objective.......,

but there is a gap between how marketers would like to use the medium and the current reality. This gap is the most pronounced when it comes to measuring ROI...'

Key insights I think are worth highlighting include:

3/4 of respondents use Paid Advertising and 64% were seeking to increase spend this year.Budget spend is shifting from off-line to on-line.ROI is…

Clickthroughs vs View-throughs - when do consumers interact and purchase?

Steelhouse carried out a research study, looking at various sources, to address the myth on ' view-through attribution'. Asked yourself the questions about the attribution of your digital marketing campaigns and which advertising resulted in the sale:  How many users who clicked on the ad actually made a purchase? Did our advertising impact the on-site purchase later via my website?  Through their research, they have shown the importance of reviewing attribution and how you measure the impact of display ads beyond direct clickthroughs. …

Global Advertising Trends by sector

Value/Importance: [rating=3] Recommended link: Nielsen Adspend by Sector Quarterly survey Nielsen have published their quarterly survey results this month, to share their global findings on 'ad spend' by sector. You can download the full report at their site. We thought we'd alert you to these, since they help show the significant changes in media spend by sector. Naturally regional changes in ad spend occur based on the economic prosperity of different regions. There was a 14% increase in Middle East and Africa. yet it's decreased in Europe as we would expect. This chart showing change in media spend by region with year on year trends, is just one of their findings.

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Find out more about the future of online display ads and tips on how to be successful with your advertising

Following on from our post on conversion rates for Google Adwords ads, including rates for the Google Display Network, this new infographic from Prestige Marketing reminds us about the role that display (banner) ads can play in your marketing. It gives a quick summary of how display can be used to generate reach and awareness on different online platforms and outlines future growth rates.    …

Leaked Email from Twitter reveal costs per follower

Value/Importance: [rating=3] Recommended link: Original post on the Drum

Our commentary on the costs of Twitter advertising

These are the costs revealed in the leaked email from Twitter’s ad sales department: Cost of $2.50 and $4 per follower $0.75 to $2.50 for each click, favourite, retweet or reply. Commitment to a minimum campaign spend of 3 months and $15,000 Since Twitter introduced it’s advertising through it’s Promoted Tweets we’ve had questions from marketers about costs and whether the service would become available to advertisers with smaller budgets as is possible through Adwords, Facebook and LinkedIn.

This leak gives an idea of the costs and suggests the programme isn’t likely to become available to small and medium businesses any time soon.

Marketing implications of the Twitter fees

While most marketers will continue to use Twitter as a…