The battle for the brand search and social dollars is heating up as Google and Facebook launch a slew of new products in a bid to outflank each other.
Facebook has been pushing its social advertising offerings in recent months as it seeks more spend from large brand advertisers. It just announced the launch of Facebook Ads Manager, which allows advertisers to manage their Facebook ads on the go in the Android and iOS apps environment. That product will be made available globally in the next few days.
Meanwhile, Google also unveiled a new app, AdWords Express, which is aimed at simplifying search advertising spend for small-to-medium sized businesses. The Android and iOS app will only be available in the US at the moment, but will likely launch in Australia over the coming months.
More broadly, global spending on social advertising is starting to gain momentum as brands experiment with new ad formats and seek to make their search campaigns integrate with other digital channels, according to Kenshoo, which is close to Facebook through a preferred developer relationship. The firm also has a link through local boss Liam Walsh, who jumped ship from Facebook earlier this year.
The Israeli tech firm has analysed global search and social spending across some 4.5bn clicks and $2.5bn in ad spend across 51 countries. Its resulting data snapshot said marketers familiar with mature paid search channels drove steady growth across most of the key digital search metrics. Search advertising spending rose 25% over the past year, and 2% in the second quarter, while social ad spend rose 51% in the past year, and 21% in the second quarter.
Social ad spending jumped as new advertisers entered the marketplace and tested new ad solutions and audience targeting methods. Kenshoo said marketers are taking the best performing ads on search and serving them on Facebook, and are also trying out cross-channel digital marketing.
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