Retailers, attracted by lower costs-per-click (CPCs) and higher click-through rates (CTRs), are diverting more paid search dollars from text ads to product listing ads (PLAs), says Marin Software in a new report. The study, which focuses on advertisers and agencies spending more than $100,000 per month on paid search (and is thus skewed towards larger retailers), finds that PLA CTRs have been steadily rising for several months, having increased by 19% year-over-year in July.
CTRs have been higher for PLAs than for standard text ads since November 2012, according to the study, with the 21% gap in June and July the highest yet.
After showing a marked increase in the latter stages of 2012, the share of PLA impressions compared to text ads leveled off early this year before dropping again in June and July. Despite that, Marin believes that the indexed share of PLA impressions versus text ads will increase again now that Google has expanded the ads to mobile devices. Read the rest at MarketingCharts.
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