The second quarter of 2023 has marked the end of more efficient spending on traditional PPC platforms. Ecommerce brands had been reaping the rewards of lower CPM and CPC in Q1 after the higher costs of peak retail moments in Q4, and now those metrics are starting to increase again. 

Across the board – for ecommerce and lead-generation brands, on both Meta and Google – there was a decrease in clicks month-over-month. Although clicks have decreased, click-thru rates have remained stable. This means the ads that are running are working… They’re just costing more.

The culprit is clear: CPM. It will be important to monitor CPC and CPM on other paid social platforms in case advertisers shift more spend to those platforms in the next few months as a response to the rising costs on Meta. Google rates have been more stable than Meta, but still aren’t the bargain marketers are getting on other platforms like TikTok. 

Particularly in lead-gen and B2B businesses, we’re seeing advertisers indexing more towards paid search traffic. This is possibly due to economic strains to capture lower funnel intent.

Takeaways for Ecommerce Brands

• Meta clicks decreased 13.1%, and Google Ads clicks decreased 12.9% month over month. 
• Meta and Google saw conversion rates decrease 12.9% and 12%, respectively.
• Where Meta and Google differentiated is in ad spend. Meta saw a 6.2% decrease, but Google was stable.  

Takeaways for Lead-Generation Brands 

• Google saw a 5.8% decrease in conversions MoM due to lower conversion rates 
• Meta clicks decreased 15.4%, but spending was stable, verifying the increased CPM and CPC.

 

This proprietary data about PPC trends comes from HawkeAI, a revolutionary data benchmarking tool that tracks your paid and organic marketing performance against competitors in your industry, provides real-time insights and suggestions to optimize ads, and presents data in an easy-to-read and even easier-to-report dashboard.