San Francisco-based SEM software developers Marin Software have published a report on The State of Digital Advertising 2017. Findings are based on interviews with 500 digital marketing managers from both agencies and brands.

Some key points:

• 70% of marketers said they are advertising on both search and social media.
• Google and Facebook together get 74% of Internet traffic.
• 43% of respondents said they expect to increase their mobile budgets by 10%-30% in 2017, and 34% expect to increase mobile budgets by more than 30%.
• 70% said they expect to spend more on social media advertising.
• Top 3 channels (>50% mention) for mobile paid advertising:
  1. Sponsored posts or ads on social media, Paid search (TIE) 70%
  2. Display advertising 61%
• Top 3 tactics (>40% mention) marketers say they plan to adopt as part of a mobile-optimized approach to SEM:
  1. Location extensions 43%
  2. Remarketing Lists for Search Ads 42%
  3. Extended Text Ads 40%
• Biggest challenges (>/=25% mention) to delivering ROI from paid search:
  1. Replicating campaigns across search engines 37%
  2. Lack of support for investment in SEM 31%
  3. Lower conversion rates than other forms of advertising 25%
• Top priorities (>/= 30%) for 2017
  1. Content marketing 42%
  2. Search marketing 39%
  3. Social Media, Retargeting/personalization (TIE) 30%

"Lower conversion rates than other forms of advertising" is an interesting item. What other forms of advertising are as measurable as paid search? Facebook ads maybe, but other researchers have consistently found paid social-media advertising to be significantly less effective than paid search.

Examples:

Microsoft study finds search to be most influential B2C marketing channel

Facebook Dynamic Travel Ads will drive bookings but Google will continue to dominate travel ad spend

Facebook poses little threat to Google in travel advertising