Kenshoo today released a new infographic, Kenshoo Digital Marketing Snapshot: Q4 2015, highlighting the changing landscape of social and search advertising as new social ad types move to the front lines and search spend continues to shift performance for marketers.

Social ad spend increased 50 per cent year-over-year (YoY) driven by the introduction of Facebook Dynamic Product Ads and Instagram ads; Google Product Listing Ads accounted for 26 per cent of all paid search impressions after accounting for only 8 per cent last year.

Mobile continued to serve as the primary growth driver in both channels and accounts for nearly all of the 8 per cent spend growth in paid search YoY.

More key findings in the research; overall:

• Social impressions increased 4 per cent QoQ but decreased 21 per cent YoY
• Social clicks decreased 16 per cent QoQ but increased 30 per cent YoY
• Social click-through rate decreased 20 per cent QoQ but increased 64 per cent YoY
• Paid search impressions increased 8 per cent QoQ and 12 per cent YoY
• Paid search clicks increased 13 per cent QoQ and 32 per cent YoY
• Paid search click-through rate increased 5 per cent QoQ and 17 per cent YoY

“The fourth quarter has long been about holiday sales, and the reliance on Product Listing Ads and Dynamic Product ads this season highlights the importance marketers placed on direct response ad types,” said Chris Costello, director of marketing research for Kenshoo.

“On top of the new social ad types, changes in bidding strategies in the social channel refocused advertisers on smaller quantities of highly targeted clicks to drive downstream actions rather than engagement; this aligned with retailer sales goals during the holiday shopping season across all digital efforts to drive healthy performance improvements.”

“Competition really ramps up in the fourth quarter among advertisers, especially retailers,” said David, Gong, Director of Strategic Accounts, PMG.

“Because of that, it’s critical that we find new efficiencies via emerging tactics and products; otherwise the increased ad spend necessary to compete in the market becomes a sunk cost. Fortunately, Kenshoo’s industry-leading technology enables us to identify and capitalize on those efficiencies for fully optimized and effective campaigns.”

You can see the full infographic here: