Mobile’s share of UK-based paid clicks amounted to 24.4% last December and up from 14.8% in January. Marin Software’s report found the Eurozone’s mobile share was slightly less at 5.9% and 14.5% in January and December 2012 respectively.
As for search budgets in 2012, the UK’s mobile share was almost a fifth (19.32%) in December and nearly twice January’s 9.9%. The Eurozone’s mobile share was lower, but did witness a doubling between January and December 2012 from 4.8% to 11.8%.
Smartphones currently dominate desktop and tablet click-through rates in both the UK and Eurozone, according to Marin’s Mobile Search Advertising Around The Globe study. In the UK, CTRs on the desktop (2.29%) are half those on smartphones (5.87%).
Desktop tops CPCs
The desktop still reigns supreme in the UK and Eurozone when it comes to cost-per-clicks (CPC). There’s a good chance this won’t continue for too much longer as the tablet is within a whisker of the desktop’s CPC territory.
Tablet CPC exceptional growth is highlighted in the report. Between January and December of 2012, it increased by 36% in the UK compared to the smartphone’s 24% and desktop’s 14%.
Across the English Channel, the rate of CPC’s increase over all of 2012 was a different story. Tablets’ growth of 24% was followed very closely by desktop’s 22%, whereas smartphones lagged a distant third with a 10% increase.
Steep incline in conversions
Conversion rates have risen over the course of 2012, but less steeply. Desktop still betters its more mobile siblings in both Europe and the UK, but Marin believes this is to do with smartphone conversions through a phone call or in a physical store.
EMEA Commercial Director at Marin Software, Jon Myers, feels it’s noteworthy that users engage more with search ads on tablets than desktops. He accepts this is now a great proposition for advertisers.
“What’s interesting is based on our report, tablet users engage with search ads more than ads on desktops,” he said. “A high user involvement combined with favourable performance characteristics make search ads on tablets hard to resist for advertisers.”