Solid Year-Over-Year Growth for Q1 of 2014
Today we released our State of Paid Search Report for Q1 of 2014, and our results demonstrate solid year-over-year growth for the first quarter of the year, with total spend increasing 35%.
Click-through rate (CTR) also grew 9.5% YoY and 35.8% QoQ, driven by CTR growth on both Google and Bing. This increase in CTR repeats a seasonal trend of CTR peaking in the first quarter of each year, unwinding from the highly competitive fourth quarter. The rise in CTR can primarily be attributed to desktops, which make up a significant majority of spend share.
CPCs grew 4.6% YoY but dipped from the previous quarter. While desktop and tablet CPCs have mostly converged following Google’s switch to enhanced campaigns, smartphone CPCs continue to be lower.
Check out the full report to gain more insight into the trends from Q1. Tune back into the blog tomorrow to see how the Google and Bing networks stacked up against each other.