We’re just about a month out from Google’s sweeping changes to desktop SERPs, in which text ads were removed entirely from the right-hand rail and the number of text ads appearing above organic results increasingly grew to four, where there used to be three.
As we reported a couple of weeks ago, the overall impact of the change hasn’t been dramatic, with at most minimal shifts in CPCs and traffic.
Two observations included in our previous analysis were:
Rising first-page minimum bids for non-brand text ads, as the total available ad inventory decreased from a maximum of 11 text ads per page to seven.
Decreasing top-of-page minimum bids for non-brand text ads, as the total available ad inventory above organic results increased from three to four for some searches.
In the days since, we’ve seen first-page minimums continue to steadily increase, while top-of-page minimums appear to be back on the rise.
While it’s too soon to attribute these changes precisely to causes, these are the symptoms we would expect if advertisers did get more aggressive with paid search bids as a result of the changes.
Note: All data sourced from samples of Merkle advertisers, which range from medium to enterprise-level businesses.
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