Google's product listing ads remain its biggest growth driver
Google’s online paid-search adverts drove sales up 13% YoY through mid-November but the US Thanksgiving season showed strength in mobile advertising and product listing adverts, which remained the biggest growth drivers, driving 65% of retail sales between October and mid-November. Thanksgiving Day sales driven by Google's paid search rose 12% between 2015 and 2016. Brands benefited from using product listing adverts as the shift from desktop to mobile continues; it’s estimated that mobile traffic share peaked at 69% on Thanksgiving Day, and phones produced 58% of clicks, up from 42% last year.

by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, December 2, 2016

Google online paid-search ads drove sales up 13% year-over-year (YoY) through mid-November, but the U.S. Thanksgiving season showed strength in mobile advertising and product listing ads (PLAs), which remained the biggest growth drivers.

Google PLAs drove 65% of retail sales from non-branded Google search ads between October and mid-November. The increase, however, slipped on Black Friday -- mirroring seasonality from recent years. On Cyber Monday, PLAs produced a bit more than 59% of non-brand sales.

Thanksgiving Day sales driven by Google paid search rose 12% between 2015 and 2016. "There were a wide range of results, however, with the variability in growth rates from one retailer to the next running about twice as high as on Black Friday or Cyber Monday," wrote Merkle Senior Director of Research Mark Ballard in a blog post. "We saw a similar pattern last year and this phenomenon likely reflects the impact of differing promotional strategies from brand to brand."

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Brands benefited from using PLAs as the shift from desktop to mobile continues. Ballard estimates that mobile traffic share peaked at 69% on Thanksgiving Day hitting 69% of search ad clicks. Phones produced 58% of clicks, up from 42% a year earlier. Tablets produced 11% of clicks, down from 17% in 2015.

Text ads continue to deliver for advertisers as well, as consumer search and shopping behavior changed after Thanksgiving. Text ad sales rose 16% YoY from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday.