Black Friday Report: Retail search ad spend shifted from text to shopping ads on desktop

Shopping ad growth continues to cannibalize text ad spend on desktop. Retail spend shifted significantly from paid search text ads to paid search shopping ads on desktop this Black Friday weekend compared to a year ago. That’s according to a report from paid search insights firm AdGooroo, a Kantar Media company, based on analysis of 2,500 top retail product keywords.

From Black Friday through Cyber Monday, advertisers spent $8.9 million on Google desktop text ads across the keyword set analyzed in the US this year compared to $15.4 million in 2015. Product listing ad spend on desktop, meanwhile, increased from $2.9 million in 2015 to $9.6 million during the period in 2016.

That’s a total spend of $18.5 million in 2016 compared to a slightly lower $18.3 million a year ago. Earlier this year, Google removed text ads from the right rail of desktop results. Product listing ads, however, display either above the organic results in the mainline or in the right rail.

Amazon led the pack in terms of click share from text ads on Google desktop, garnering 6.3 percent of clicks over the weekend. (Amazon does not participate in Google Shopping.) Walmart accounted for 8.1 percent of desktop product listing ad clicks for the period.