Study finds search rising again

There is a new heavy hitter in the search marketing wars and it isn't a search engine - it's Amazon. According to new data out from Marin Software, marketers who have Amazon profiles are pushing about 20% of their digital budgets into Amazon search ads.

by Kristina Knight

"While Google and Facebook continue to be the most prominent channels for digital ad spend, we're now seeing more and more early adopters experimenting with Amazon's ad offerings," said Wes MacLaggan, SVP of Marketing at Marin Software.

Much of the marketer spend within Amazon is for Sponsored Product Ads, which account for more than three-quarters (79%) of the spend there. Headline Shopping Ads represent about 21% of the Amazon spend.

"Amazon has essentially become a massive search engine for consumers far down the purchase funnel and we're eager to help advertisers increase their presence on this important channel in quarters to come. This is a really exciting time to be involved in the digital advertising space, and I'm looking forward to exploring Amazon's impact on the marketing landscape in 2018 and beyond," said MacLaggan.

According to Marin's Q2 2018 Digital Advertising Benchmark Report, the search spend is up about 13% YoY, with much of that increase driven by an increase in CPCs and click volume.

One big change: the number of clicks coming from social networks have dropped about 3% QoQ; this drop is being attributed to new privacy laws and the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Tags: advertising, ecommerce, Marin Software, search marketing, sem trends, seo trends