Merkle , a leading technology-enabled, data-driven customer experience management (CXM) company, released its Q4 2020 Digital Marketing Report (DMR), a quarterly research report that analyzes and highlights trends within paid and organic search, Amazon ads, paid social, and display ad spend.
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The report provides insights into digital marketing trends in Q4 2020 that were heavily influenced by pandemic-related changes to the holiday season, but ultimately began to highlight a “return to normalcy” in activity across Google, Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, and more.
Overall, spend growth continued to improve in Q4, anchored by an exceptionally strong month for retail in November. Shoppers started to show some indication of a willingness to visit stores, with Google estimating that October 2020 daily store visits were on par with January 2020 visitation levels. However, Q4 store visits were still down 22% Y/Y, not quite reestablishing normal levels for the holidays. Retail and consumer goods saw strong organic search figures in Q4 (40% Y/Y growth), and travel saw ad spend improvement from Q3 despite still being down 20% Y/Y.
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Google paid search clicks grew 12% Y/Y, continuing on a path of deceleration back toward Q1 2020 growth levels. Concurrently, CPC growth continued to reverse its trend and climbed to positive Y/Y growth for the first time since Q1. Higher CPC growth and lower click growth combined to generate 12% ad spend growth, one percentage point higher than Q3’s growth figure.
Phones dropped to 64% of total paid search clicks in Q4, returning to pre-pandemic levels, and desktop traffic increased as consumers spent more time at home, whether it was due to the holidays or stay-at-home orders. Tablet traffic share grew to 4% Y/Y, up from 3% in Q3, benefiting from the same consumer trends that increased desktop share. Local Inventory Ad (LIA) share of total Google Shopping ad clicks remained below pre-pandemic levels but showed improvements compared to Q3. In October and November, LIA click share averaged 15%, compared to 25% in early Q1.
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