YouTube is the reason for declining CPCs

[djbaxter]

Google: YouTube Has Been The Cause Of Declining CPCs This Whole Time
by Ginny Marvin, MarketingLand.com
June 5, 2015

[O]n the most recent earnings call with analysts, Google CFO Patrick Pichette said that Google?s declining ad click costs, have not been caused by mobile, as many have assumed, but by YouTube. This week, VP of search ads, Jerry Dischler, told the audience at SMX Advanced in Seattle, that YouTube has been the cause of declining CPCs not just in the past quarter, but this whole time ? CPCs started heading south in Q4 2011. Last quarter, Google reported that clicks to Google sites (Google.com, Gmail, Maps, YouTube) increased by 25 percent year-over-year while CPCs from Google sites fell by 13 percent.

Here?s what Pichette said on the call about the numbers:

So many commentators are incorrectly assuming that the growth trends in our sites, clicks, and CPCs are primarily due to difficulties monetizing search on Mobile, but that?s in fact not the case. Remember that sites metrics includes clicks and revenues related to ads served and Google?s and on properties, most notably, obviously, Google.com, but as well as YouTube, engagement ads like TrueView, where users choose not to skip an ad is counted as a click.

While over the past year, we have seen YouTube viewership claimed dramatically both in established markets but also due to rapid expansion in emerging markets, and quality improvements in the TrueView ads mean that more users are in fact choosing not to skip them, increasing the overall ad view.​

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