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Smartphone Search Revenue Demonstrates Strength

Paid-search ad conversions grew 45% year-over-year from Thanksgiving through Christmas day or 37% from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, according to data released Tuesday.

AdLucent's data based on 32 brands running paid advertising on Google's search engine shows traffic from mobile search ads to brand Web sites during the holidays rose 70% YoY; sales, 80%; and orders, 111%. Mobile accounted for 30% of all orders tracked by AdLucent's network.

AdLucent defines orders as items purchased — one or many — and sales are defined as the dollar amount. 

Smartphones are the only device that grew traffic share, orders and sales. When it comes to the share of traffic on mobile devices, smartphones rose 11% in 2016 during the holiday season compared with 2015, accounting for 52%. Tablets accounted for 12% of traffic share, for a decline of 9% compared with 2015, and desktops 36% — declining 10% compared with 2015.

Smartphones rose 35% during the 2016 holiday season compared with 2015, accounting for 30% of total order share, while tablets accounted for 13% -- down 16% compared with 2015 — and desktops came in at 57%, down 9%, respectively.

When it comes to total revenue share, smartphones also rose 35% during the 2016 holiday season compared with 2015, accounting for 26%. Tablets accounted for 12% -- down 14% compared with 2015 — and desktops accounted for 62%, down 6%, respectively.

AdLucent also released data on Google product listing ads (PLAs) running across the company's search engine. Text ad click share surpassed PLA click share during the Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday weekend — 52% text ad click share versus 48% PLAs—but PLA click share surpassed text ad click share during the full holiday season at 46% click share for text ads versus 54% PLAs.

Overall, marketers ran 58% more product ads such as PLAs, this holiday season, compared with 2015. Smartphone PLA orders were up 117% YoY. Text ad orders rose 31% YoY and smartphone text ad orders were up 96% YoY, according to AdLucent data.

AdLucent also tracked Christmas day through New Year's Day performance numbers. Impressions rose 56% YoY; orders 34%, and revenue 29%.

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