Research by Adobe has revealed that the global online advertising landscape is undergoing some dramatic changes. Paid search advertising growth is on the decline as advertisers flock to using programmatic display adverts instead, due to the latter's superior personalisation capabilities. Global paid search growth decreased by 75% last year, with the biggest drop being in Europe. Those advertisers who are using paid search are increasing the amount of money they're spending on mobile ads, with 38% of search ad spend going on mobile, reflecting the fact that 41% of internet users globally are accessing the web via their mobile phones. Attitudes towards Google paid search advertising are also changing. Whilst the amount advertisers spent on Google search ads increased by 4% in North America, it actually fell by a third in Europe compared to the previous year. This may be due to the ongoing EU investigation into Google for alleged anti-competitive practices. Focusing on the rise of display advertising, the study also looked at the Google Display Network and Facebook News Feed. Both display networks saw increases in their click-through-rates year-on-year, with Google seeing growth of 27% and Facebook seeing growth of 36%. The rise has been attributed to improvements in audience-targeting technologies.Â
