The SEO budget in Asia Pacific continues to experience robust growth.
Currently, Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) is now the fastest growing region for search advertising in the world. The data reveals that search spending grew seven per cent for the quarter and a solid 13 per cent for the year. That compares favorably to the experience in the Australians where the results where two per cent and 10 per cent respectively. Other metrics in the APJ region all looked strong with solid growth in impressions and clicks, once again significantly in advance of the performance of the other parts of the world.
Indeed the only decline across the region came in year-on-year click-through rates, which fell one per cent, although the quarterly result was a six per cent improvement.
Mobile advertising (quite specifically on smartphones and not tablets) is the star performer around the world, growing by more than 50 per cent in each of the three regions studied. The data also reveals that cost per click for mobile in APJ is considerably less than for desktops or tablets, but all three devices dipped in Q3 relative to the previous quarter.
Possible causes could be heavier reliance on brand terms, or building out broader keyword lists at lower prices to increase overall keyword coverage. Search ad impressions and clicks were both up by over 20 per cent for the quarter in APJ, while click growth caught up with impression growth in Q3, while smartphones saw impressions triple compared to the previous year.
Meanwhile the overall CPCs dipped in Q3 for APJ, compared to both the previous quarter and the same quarter last year. Click-through rate grew despite the large increase in impressions on smartphones.
The average cost per click in Australia grew just under four percent to $0.78 for the quarter. Of the larger markets in APJ, China has the highest CPC, while Australia has higher click-through rates.
Mobile social lead the way, growing its spend by 159 per cent over the last 12 months. Interestingly, impression volumes actually fell on social over the twelve months by 36 per cent, although clicks grew by 75 per cent suggesting advertisers are becoming much more efficient with their activity.