NEW YORK, April 11, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- IgnitionOne, a global marketing cloud leader, today released its Q1 2016 Digital Marketing Report, demonstrating both steady trends and surprising changes in digital advertising metrics. Q1 marked a drop in U.S. paid search spend for the first time in 6 years, down 5% year over year (YoY). Mobile continues to be the star of search, demonstrating the largest jump in impressions in several years at 19% year over year. Programmatic display is up 10% YoY, with Facebook dominating Google in growth, up 51%.
Key findings in the report:
Search spend decreases for first time in over six years
U.S. Google paid search, for the first time since 2009, decreased YoY. Following a year of strong and steady growth, Q1 2016 saw a decrease of 5% in spend. A drop in CPCs in mobile due to additional advertising real estate and a poor start of the year for financial markets are likely to blame.
Mobile continues to be bright spot in search
Though spend was down for the quarter, US paid search impressions and clicks built on Q4 2015’s rebound. In fact, Q1 saw the largest jump in impressions in three years, up 19% YoY while clicks increased 15%. This trend is driven by mobile where impressions and clicks were also both up robustly (73% and 86%).
Programmatic Display grows as Facebook dominates
U.S. programmatic display saw an increase in spend of 10% YoY in Q1. The quarter also saw Facebook again outpacing Google in terms growth, up 51% YoY while Google spend decreased 10% YoY.
European Website and Score trends
Across a wide range of European clients, we saw an increase in website visitors in Q1 2016, up 12% compared to a year earlier. In an effort to convert these visitors to leads, personalized interactions were served. The interactions increased 56% YoY, driving growth in leads of 22% overall. Additional breakdowns by key verticals (automotive, retail and finance) as well as mobile device usage are included in the report.
“For the first time in years, Google paid search is down in our report. But do not mistake this for the sky falling,” said Will Margiloff, CEO of IgnitionOne. “Search remains one of the most effective tools to drive results for marketers and the shift to mobile search is creating both opportunities and efficiencies.”
A follow-up to this report will be released in the coming weeks including Q1 data from Bing. A webinar hosted by IgnitionOne and Bing unpacking the results of the report will be held later this month.
Digital marketing figures are released quarterly by IgnitionOne, which manages more than $1.5 billion in digital spend and tracks over $30 billion in revenue for its customers. This is the longest continuously running quarterly report on digital marketing trends and is the latest in a series from IgnitionOne, reviewing trends across the online advertising landscape. This and previous quarterly reports can be downloaded in full at http://www.ignitionone.com/thought-leadership/.
About IgnitionOne
IgnitionOne simplifies life for marketers, providing deeper insights and robust targeting of individuals through the use of proprietary engagement scoring and integrated marketing and advertising solutions. The IgnitionOne DMS is full-featured digital marketing hub which significantly improves performance across all devices and channels. IgnitionOne allows marketers to better understand their customers and activate personalized 1:1 messaging across search, display, social, mobile, email, and website personalization. With a global footprint of over 450 employees in 17 offices across 10 countries, IgnitionOne is one of the largest independent marketing technology companies in the world. IgnitionOne currently scores over 300 million users monthly in 75 countries and powers more than $60 billion in revenue each year for leading brands, including General Motors, CenturyLink, Bridgestone, La Quinta and Acer, as well as advertising agencies such as 360i, GroupM and Zenith Optimedia.
For more information, please visit http://www.ignitionone.com, follow the company on Twitter @ignitionone or visit the blog at http://www.ignitionone.com/blog.