Paid search trends to watch for the 2019 holiday shopping season
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Paid search trends to watch for the 2019 holiday shopping season
The holidays are here! That means search marketers everywhere are putting the finishing touches on strategies to make the most out of the next few weeks, the most important stretch of sales for many businesses.
However, don't go into the holiday shopping season without reading up on these key trends which might help wrap up your strategy a little bit tighter.
Google Shopping will likely be the star of retail
It should be absolutely no surprise to retailers that Google Shopping is incredibly important to paid search success, and I've written about its rise many times over the years. This continues to be the case today, as Google Shopping accounted for 48% of all Google search spend in Q3 2019 for Tinuiti (my employer) retail advertisers. Advertisers should once again prepare for Shopping to play a key role during the winter holidays this year.
However, this Q4 and the months that follow will be an important time for both Google and advertisers in determining just how long Google Shopping can continue its torrid pace of growth, as we're beginning to lap some shifts that happened at the end of last year that significantly drove up Google Shopping traffic.
As you can see from the chart below, Google Shopping click growth jumped from 41% last Q3 to 49% in Q4, and while growth has remained strong since, there has been a steady deceleration.
As has long been the case, phones in particular are driving much of the Google Shopping growth, and in Q3 2019 clicks grew 36% on phones compared to 27% overall.
The leap last Q4 coincided with an explosion in Google Shopping impressions, as Google seemed to prioritize Google Shopping over text ads. The impression g