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The Impact of COVID-19 On Ad Metrics
Costs, Engagements & Acquisition Changes During Nationwide Shutdowns
Covid-19 has impacted life around the world with various shutdowns, stay-at-home orders and just generally rethinking your lifestyle. Businesses shut down, advertisers pulled back on spend and media consumption abruptly shifted. With this being said, there were a number of advertisers that sought to push through these shutdowns, maintain top-of-mind awareness and push sales in new ways. With that, let’s take a look at how navigating the first couple of months through COVID-19 was.Industry Average Digital Marketing Metrics:
Industry average and historic metrics don’t ever fully depict what your advertising campaigns expectations are. For instance, WordStream does a really good job of identifying the industry averages for Search, Social and Display campaigns and provides the following for expectations on costs:A Quick Analysis of Trends:
The following trends across search, display, video and social media platforms take into consideration trending performance figures over $2.5 million in managed advertising spend over a 16-month period. Some things to note:- Ad dollars can be slightly skewed due to the heavy emphasis on automotive advertising
- Marketing reach is national but focuses on advertising for Pittsburgh Small-Medium Sized Businesses
- Change in approach/optimization goals can abruptly change metrics
- Static-industry benchmarks can lead to complacency, benchmarking on trending performance supports healthy business growth
2019 Advertising Averages & Trends:
Throughout 2019, we saw some very similar cyclical performance changes as we did in 2018 with cost metrics giving way to the changing of seasons:Average 2019 CPC for Search and Social Media
A slight dip in January and February, followed by a slow summer and then constant increases through Q3 and abrupt increases throughout Q4. Throughout the year, paid search saw a 40% swing in terms of CPC where social media saw more than a 75% swing in CPC. These follow global patterns of advertising trends. Switching gears to averages in Programmatic Display CTR and percent change in cost (using CPM in this graph), a similar story was seen. Monthly CPM increases were noted for every month in 2019, except for August and Q4, where we actually had regression in CPM.Don’t Want To Miss Anything? Sign Up For Our Newsletter!
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Q1 & Q2 2020 Advertising Averages & Trends
Nearly every year, first quarter retains some of its December momentum with high search volumes, resembling retail sales. As January progresses, metrics do begin to decrease into February and March, making way for the Spring/Summer lows. During 2020, there was a significant decrease in these numbers, which was significantly more than that of previous years. And, as these metrics moved into Q2, they didn’t begin to rebound. Throughout our advertising efforts, which stayed pretty consistent in terms of total spend, saw a stark decrease in average costs, with more than a 50% slide in Paid Search CPC and a 90% decrease in CPC in social media (comparing May through earlier highs).A Careful Approach To Benchmarks:
As a final thought, it’s important to not put too much stock in industry benchmarks. Too much focus on benchmarks can bread complacency, as you start to focus on the fact that “I’m already beating industry averages”, which even when it begins to trend down, continues as “Well, we’re down but still over industry averages”, and by the time you are below industry benchmarks, it’s too late to turn that negative trend around. Additionally, benchmarks are void of insights in unprecedented times, as they mostly rely on, well, precedent and at the end of the day, most metrics are relative so they need great context when analyzed. Rather than keeping an eye on static benchmarks, keep your aims on positive trend lines over time. This allows for a continued eye on growth and allows for correcting momentary downturns.Jordan is the dedicated CMO for Corkboard Concepts. His career in marketing and media has gone through various twists. Spending the first couple years as a digital nomad, Jordan took his “marketing wits” on a tour of the globe starting online businesses in the US, United Kingdom and Asia. From eCommerce to digital publications, freelance marketing to local media, variety and change have been constants in Jordan’s marketing world.
Jordan is the dedicated CMO for Corkboard Concepts. His career in marketing and media has gone through various twists. Spending the first couple years as a digital nomad, Jordan took his “marketing wits” on a tour of the globe starting online businesses in the US, United Kingdom and Asia. From eCommerce to digital publications, freelance marketing to local media, variety and change have been constants in Jordan’s marketing world.
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