Kenshoo: Paid search continues double-digit yearly growth

While paid search continues to account for the lion's share of digital marketing investment, Kenshoo's latest quarterly study shows how social ad spending is increasing at a faster rate year-on-year.

by Helen Leggatt

A year-on-year comparison between spending on paid search and social ad spending reveals that search continues to grow at double-digit year rates. Search ad spend increased 10% year-on-year with search advertiser revenue up 12%.

Meanwhile, the relative newcomer social saw spend increase 37% and social revenue increase by 191%.

According to Kenshoo's chief marketing officer, Aaron Goldman, the key to harnessing the success of both channels is to "approach search and social holistically and leverage advanced cross-channel platforms to automate and optimize campaigns".

"Search has long been the rock of digital marketing plans and will continue to be for its ability to capture intent and drive direct response results. The fact that search is still growing at double-digit yearly rates shows there is plenty of opportunity out there for scale," said Goldman. "Meanwhile, social advertising has clearly emerged as a vital always-on component of the media mix and its triple-digital growth in revenue proves that marketers are successfully converting social engagement into tangible business outcomes."

A recent report from Marin Software, "The Multiplier Effect of Integrating Search and Social Advertising", revealed that successful marketers are integrating search and social and that search campaigns were found to perform better when managed alongside social campaigns. Such a combination resulted in 26% higher revenue per click than search campaigns managed in isolation and 68% rise in revenue per conversion when search was managed alongside social campaigns.