Google Mobile Benchmarks - by Ad Type! [DATA]

Last month, when we released our Google Ads mobile benchmarks for 18 industries, one of our readers commented that it would be really helpful to know the average click-through rate, conversion rate and so on for each mobile ad type.

We thought, you know what? You’re absolutely right! (Our readers are so smart.)

So we dug back into that same data set (a sampling of mobile ads in over 20,000 of our US-based client accounts) and sliced the data up by ad type rather than industry. Today, we’re excited to share these new benchmarks with you – average CTR, average cost per click (CPC), average conversion rate (CVR), and average cost per action (CPA) for the following ad types available on mobile:

Search Ads, including text ads, expanded text ads, and call-only ads
Display Ads, including standard display ads, responsive display ads, and Gmail ads
Shopping Ads, including standard shopping ads and showcase shopping ads
Video Ads
Mobile App Install Ads

The metrics for all these different mobile ad types available in Google Ads definitely vary a lot, so it’s important to be mindful of what counts as a good click-through rate or a good cost per click depending on what types of mobile campaigns you’re running. Let’s take a closer look!

Google Mobile Search Ads

Unsurprisingly, expanded text ads (which, as of August, are now even bigger than they used to be) have a higher click-through rate, at almost 4%, than standard, smaller text ads at 2.27%. Generally, ads that take up more space and provide more information lead to more clicks. Those expanded ads also have a higher conversion rate (3.6% compared to 2.3%).

Call-only ads (and call tracking) are super important in industries that depend on calls to seal the deal. Local service-based businesses like plumbers and locksmiths are a classic example, but people also generally want to talk to someone before they take on a big expense – think choosing a lawyer or purchasing enterprise software. If this sounds like your business, make it as easy as possible for people to reach you from your mobile ads – check out how high the conversion rate is for call-only ads (21%)!

That super high conversion rate keeps the cost per acquisition low even though the cost per click is more than twice that of a plain-flavor text ad.

Google Mobile Display Ads

When friend-of-WordStream Michelle Morgan wrote about best practices for responsive display ads, she shared some data indicating that responsive ads are getting more impressions, higher CTR and a lower CPC. Our data confirms that responsive ads are getting better performance metrics on mobile devices, too – about twice the CTR on average (0.70% for responsive compared to 0.35% for regular display).

Gmail ads have an incredibly high CTR of 20%, but that’s a little misleading if you don’t know that for Gmail ads, an open counts as a click. That’s still a really strong open rate for a paid promotion, though. Note that the CPA is a little higher than for other types of mobile display – if you’re looking to improve performance and lower costs for your Gmail ads, check out these tips from Larry Kim.

Google Mobile Shopping Ads

Shopping ads and showcase shopping ads are pretty much neck and neck – though regular shopping ads have a higher CTR, showcase shopping ads have a higher CTR and slightly lower costs. As always, your mileage may vary.

Other Mobile Ad Types

If you’ve got an app, mobile app install ads are a no-brainer – a high conversion rate and low cost per click mean that you’ll only be spending $5 on average for a new user. (OK, well, they’re a no-brainer if a new app user is worth more to your business than $5.)

Did you know that over half of all video content is watched on mobile? Mobile video ads (such as YouTube ads) are comparable in cost to search ads, and can be amazing for raising brand awareness.

Here are all the mobile ad type benchmarks together in one handy graphic:

Did any of these metrics surprise you? Feel like your own mobile ad campaigns are coming up short? Try running your Google Ads account through our free performance grader to get a sense of how your mobile ads are performing compared to other advertisers with similar budgets.

Data Sources:

This report is based on a sample of 20,297 US-based WordStream client accounts in all verticals (representing a little over $139 million in aggregate Google Ads spend) who were advertising on Google’s Search and Display networks in the 2017 calendar year. Each industry includes at minimum 35 unique active clients. “Averages” are technically median figures to account for outliers. All currency values are posted in USD.

A huge shout out and thanks to our Data Analyst Patrick Henry Carrera for pulling these numbers, and to Kate Lindsay for the design work!