![US Retailers Paid Search Metric Growth For Text vs Product Ads, Q4 2014 [CHART]](https://trends.e-strategyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/184635.gif "Chart - US Retailers Paid Search Metric Growth For Text vs Product Ads")
The rise in Google shopping ad spending among retailers meant advertisers in the sector needed to include product ads in their search efforts to keep up with the competition, and results from Merkle | RKG highlighted this as well.
RKG found that US retail paid search clicks for PLAs and Bing Product Ads combined rose 50.8% year over year in Q4 2014, vs. 6.4% for text ads. Similar to the rate Adobe found for Google shopping ads, spending on the two product ad types combined rose 45.4% in the retail sector between Q4 2013 and Q4 2014, while growth for text ads was 10.4%. Meanwhile, cost per click was down for product ads, which RKG said was partly due to “lower-priced Bing Product Ads growing at a faster rate than Google PLAs.”
Each search engine saw product ads increase their share of retail clicks during the quarter, as well. Product Ads accounted for 7% of all paid search clicks on Bing in Q4 2014, double that of the third quarter, while PLAs expanded their portion to 30% of all Google paid search clicks for retailers. Read the rest at eMarketer.
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