CPC was up 27% YoY, and did not see the typical decline from Q4 into Q1. In fact, in a lot of cases, CPC has increased since the 2016 holiday season. As expected, [inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””]much of the overall increase can be attributed to more aggressive competition on mobile[/inlinetweet]. More surprising is the CPC increase that is coming from desktop, especially as both impressions and clicks on desktop devices are decreasing.
Search Marketing
Are search ads a waste of money? This isn’t to say that big brands should never invest in search advertising, but they should bear in mind that[inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””] search ads work best when they alert consumers to something they’re not already aware of.[/inlinetweet] For instance, Gap might forgo search ads that would pop up when users search the company’s name or its best-known categories, such as jeans, and instead pay to appear in results for categories it isn’t commonly associated with, such as shoes.