APAC and Japan outpace all other markets for paid search growth
Kenshoo's latest "Digital Marketing Snapshot: Q2 2015" reveals that the Asia-Pacific and Japan have posted a 15% rise in search advertising spend in the past year, underlined by a phenomenal 69% rise in advertiser's spend on smartphone search ads; in comparison, desktop search ad spend only rose 7% in the year end of June in these regions.
Marketing software company Kenshoo has unveiled its digital marketing snapshot, revealing the Asia-Pacific and Japan region outpaced all other markets in terms of the growth rates in paid search advertising spend, clicks and impressions, especially on mobile devices.

The report, Kenshoo Digital Marketing Snapshot: Q2 2015, includes key quarterly metrics and benchmarks for paid search and social advertising based on 550 billion impressions, nearly 10 billion clicks and US$5.5 billion in advertiser spend through the Kenshoo Infinity Suite.

The data showed that the Asia-Pacific and Japan region posted a 15 per cent rise in search advertising spend in the past year, underpinned by a phenomenal 69 per cent rise in advertiser spend on smartphone search ads. In comparison, desktop search ad spend rose only 7 per cent in the year to end of June in the Asia-Pacific and Japan region.

“Mobile is rapidly becoming the center of the search universe as consumers increasingly rely on the smartphone to find information on the move,” Yukihiko Imamura, Asia-Pacific and Japan managing director for Kenshoo.

“Our data also shows that more than half of paid search clicks in the Asia-Pacific and Japan region were on smartphones and tablets in the second quarter of this year. The year of mobile has certainly arrived.”

The report also highlighted a 23 per cent year-on-year jump in search advertising impressions in the region, and a 17 per cent rise in click volume. Globally, social advertising is also booming with quarterly global spend on social advertising shown to be growing by 114 per cent year-on-year (YoY) in Q2 2015, twice as fast as a year ago, driving a 535 per cent increase in click-through rate (CTR).

Imamura said advertisers in the Asia-Pacific region are still heavily focused on driving search volume and he expects that advertisers over the next year will focus on making their search advertising programs more efficient, by implementing more advanced bidding management and better optimisation.

“We are at the start of mobile search becoming a key part of the digital advertising landscape in Southeast Asia and Japan,” said Imamura. “The sheer growth of smartphone usage in the region means advertisers need to adopt a robust mobile marketing strategy, underpinned by the consumer engagement opportunities that the mobile channel delivers.”