EMEA marketers driving dramatic yearly increases in paid search efficiency

Quarterly sales revenue from paid search advertising is up 18% year-on-year (YoY) in Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) according to the latest quarterly data from Kenshoo (www.Kenshoo.com), the global leader in predictive marketing software. The paid search advertising click-through-rate (CTR) has increased by 32% YoY in EMEA to reach an all-time high of 2.4% in Q3 2014

“The increase in paid search sales revenue shows the increasing value that search ads are delivering for EMEA marketers,” said Justin Thorne, regional marketing director for EMEA at Kenshoo. “Our quarterly data also shows that by continually optimising campaigns, delivering tailored messaging, and using more precise targeting, marketers in the region are driving dramatic yearly increases in paid search efficiency. The third quarter saw a 4% increase in clicks on search ads while the volume of impressions declined by 21%.”

The data is presented in a new Kenshoo infographic, EMEA Search Advertising Trends Q3 2014, which highlights key quarterly metrics and benchmarks for paid search based on advertisers and agencies who manage search advertising on the Kenshoo platform across EMEA.

A regional breakdown of the Kenshoo data shows:

• The U.K. pays more per click (€ 0.49) than their continental counterparts.
• Germany has the lowest Cost-per-Click (CPC), € 0.33, of the major EMEA markets, but it also has the lowest CTR (1.2%).
• Spain enjoys the highest click-through rate.

Country-level Cost per Click and Click-through Rate
U.K. France Germ Spain
2014 Q3 CPC € 0.49 € 0.39 € 0.33 € 0.36
2014 Q3 CTR 2.7% 2.9% 1.2% 3.5%

In the U.K., the share of search spend and clicks from mobile devices reached an all-time high with mobile now accounting for 38% of spend and 39% of all clicks on search ads. The CPC of advertising on tablets (€ 0.49) is now very similar to the CPC on mobile phones (€ 0.48), indicating that the increasing demand for advertising on mobile phones means that marketers are realising value from mobile search traffic.

“The growing ownership of smartphones and tablets means it’s inevitable that spend and clicks on mobile search advertising will increase. And since the introduction of Google’s enhanced campaigns, desktops, tablets and mobiles can all be served with ads within the same campaign, making it easier to target mobile devices,” said Thorne.

About the data
Search results are based on five quarters of performance data from over 6,000 Kenshoo advertiser and agency profiles across all regions, including 17 vertical industries and 51 countries, spanning the Google, Baidu, Bing, Yahoo!, and Yahoo! Japan ad networks. Only accounts based in EMEA with five consecutive quarters of stable data from July 2013 through September 2014 were included in this analysis.

Note: There may be variation in numbers for past or future research published by Kenshoo as the rolling data set is dynamic for each new quarter.