Google Inc.’s heavily hyped change to its search algorithm on smartphones so “mobile friendliness” factors into how a website ranks in organic search results put a damper on some sites’ traffic, according to the new Adobe Digital Index “Q2 2015 Digital Advertising Report.”

The report finds that organic search visits fell by as much as 10% for nonmobile-friendly sites compared to the previous year.

“The Mobilegeddon fears became reality,” says Joe Martin, senior analyst, Adobe Digital Index.

Perhaps in anticipation of declining traffic, demand increased for mobile paid search ads causing the cost per click to jump 16% year over year, while mobile paid search click-through rates fell 9%. The 25 percentage point gap between the growth in cost per click and the decline in click-through rates, which Adobe calls the negative spread, is in line with what marketers encounter during the frenzied holiday season, but atypical during the second quarter.

“That’s a scary trend. Everyone has to get their mobile marketing programs in line because that’s where the traffic is headed,” he says. The Adobe Digital Index anticipates mobile traffic surpassing desktop traffic within the next 18 months.

Google hasn’t been aggressive enough in adjusting its business model to consumers’ increasing use of mobile, Martin says, pointing to the 4.5% dip in search revenue compared to the previous quarter. That presented an opportunity that Facebook seized, he says. Facebook, which last year began reducing the number of display ads consumers see in the right-hand column of its site, cut the number of ad impressions it delivered 49% year over year while boosting ads’ click-through rates 99%.

“Facebook has figured out how to make its ads more effective due to targeting,” Martin says. The social network has also been driving retailers and other marketers to use ads to push products and services rather than rely on posts. For instance, in January it changed its news feed algorithm that determines what consumers see to minimize the number of consumers who see a brand’s organic posts if they are too promotional.

While the click-through rate for Google’s display ads grew 24% in the second quarter, that’s 75 percentage points less than the growth rate of Facebook’s display ads, the Adobe Digital Index finds. Martin attributes Facebook’s growth to its robust targeting tools, such as Custom Audience, which lets a brand target ads at customers in the retailer’s email database or those who visit its site. The result is consumers judging Facebook to be better than YouTube at serving ads in which they’re interested, according to an Adobe survey of roughly 400 U.S. consumers, which accompanied the quarterly report.

The report also examined the revenue Adobe Systems Inc.’s retail, media, entertainment and travel clients generated from shoppers clicking from social networks. It then divided that by the number of unique visitors from those social sites to develop the average revenue per visit. Adobe found the average revenue per visit for shoppers who click from Facebook was 91 cents in the second quarter, down about 16.5% from $1.09 in the same period a year earlier. The average revenue per visit for consumers clicking from Twitter was 65 cents, up 62.5% from 40 cents. The average revenue per visit for shoppers clicking from Pinterest was 68 cents, up 33.3%% from 51 cents a year earlier.

Adobe based its report on its clients’ 890 billion digital ad impressions from search and social platforms and 21 billion social visits from social network sites.  

 

 

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