Tablet Users Are More Engaged on Websites Than PC and Smartphone Users

A study from IgnitionOne, a digital marketing solutions firm, found that paid search spending in the third quarter of 2012 was up from the same period last year, though it was flat quarter-over-quarter.

Also, tablet users exhibit more engagement with websites than PC and smartphone users.

The “Online Advertising Report: Q3 2012” found that U.S. paid search spend in the third quarter rose 17.8 percent year-over-year. This growth was faster than the 15.5 percent year-over-year increase in spend observed in the second quarter.

However, paid search clicks rose just 6.0 percent year-over-year in the third quarter, slower than the 13.2 percent year-over-year increase in clicks in the second quarter. Meanwhile, click-through rates (CTRs) were down 13.7 percent year-over-year in the third quarter, while impressions were up 22.9 percent year-over-year.

Cost-per-clicks (CPCs) rose 11.2 percent year-over-year in the third quarter. IgnitionOne noted that Google’s CPCs were up 7.7 percent year-over-year, the first time an increase for the search giant was observed in 2012. The company attributed this to mobile ads closing the CPC gap with PCs. Yahoo/Bing saw its CPCs rise 26.1 percent year-over-year.

According to IgnitionOne, Google claimed 79.2 percent of U.S. search ad spend, while Yahoo/Bing claimed 20.8 percent. However, Yahoo/Bing saw spend increase year-over-year by 38.8 percent, leaving Google and its 13.0 percent growth in the dust.

Spending on mobile and tablet search advertising accounted for 16.3 percent of total search budgets in the third quarter, a 167.5 percent surge from the same period last year. However, this growth was only half of the year-over-year growth observed in the second quarter. IgnitionOne notes that tablets accounted for 52.2 percent of total mobile search advertising budgets in the third quarter, a decline from 60.0 percent in the previous quarter.

IgnitionOne also took a look at engagement by device and found that tablets boasted an average of 30 percent more time on-site than PC users and an Engagement Score (“a proprietary user-level scoring technology that measures behavior and propensity to convert on a relative scale”) 20 percent higher than PC users. Tablet users also had about 10 percent more page views than PC users. This differentiation was even starker in the retail vertical, especially fashion, IgnitionOne noted with a nod to marketers.

While smartphone users are larger in number than their tablet-using counterparts, IgnitionOne observed that this segment exhibited a lower average when it came to time on-site, page views and Engagement Score. “This is likely due to the slower speed and less optimal browsing experience on a smartphone when compared to larger devices.”

Separate numbers from comScore reveal that mobile phones and tablets accounted for about 1 in 8, or 13.3 percent, of total Internet page views. This reflects nearly double the share these devices had just a year ago.

According to comScore, mobile phones drove 9.0 percent of page views during the month, while tablets drove 4.3 percent of page views. PCs accounted for 86.7 percent of all page views during August, though they have seen their share decline 6.4 percentage points in the past year.

By Jason Hahn