Tinuiti Q2 Ad Report Sees Spike in AI-Powered Digital Campaigns
So how did the digital ad economy perform in Q2? Tinuiti explains it all for us in its Digital Ads Benchmark Report, released July 24, which looks at quarterly trends across Google, Meta, Amazon and other dominant platforms.
First off, AI-powered digital campaigns drove spending up for the likes of Meta Advantage + and Google Performance Max campaigns. Meta’s shopping campaigns were responsible for 23% of all Meta ads for retail advertisers in Q2 compared to 19% in Q2 2023. Nearly 90% of retailers than those who ran shopping listings with Google adopted Google’s Performance Max campaigns.
Ad click-through rates on Google text fell during the rollout of AI overviews. Brands experienced a significant decline in click-through rates in May while Google was rolling out AI overviews to all U.S. users. The decline was most severe on phones, where AI overviews have reportedly been more common.
Against a possible ban of the platform in the U.S., TikTok ad spending rose 10% compared to the same period in 2023. Even with a possible ban, advertisers have yet to shift ad dollars away from it. Tinuiti survey data indicates the biggest beneficiaries of a ban would be platforms that have already invested in short-form vertical video, namely Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
Speaking of YouTube, connected TV showed impressive growth in viewing which pushed spending on the video platform 28% year-over-year. Ad spending in CTV is up 115% year-over-year, with impressions surging across devices. But YouTube was an exception in seeing more robust spending growth trends in Q2 than in Q1.
Inventory on Amazon Prime Video helped drive up streaming ad spending to 17% outside of YouTube. Amazon launched its Prime Video ad units in January 2024, and they significantly contributed to total streaming investment. Brand spending on Prime Video ads increased each month since their launch.
On the e-commerce platforms, China’s blockbuster retail site Temu pulled up on its participation in Google ad auctions in Q1. That move came after its share of Google shopping ad impressions fell precipitously. In Q2, Temu upped its spending on Google ads doubling its share of shopping ad impressions from April to July.
“Temu’s drop in Google impression share came in the runup to May reports that it was ‘shifting business priorities beyond the U.S.,’ due in part to the U.S. government’s treatment of TikTok,” said Mark Ballard, Director of Research at Tinuiti. “Since then Temu has faced stricter rules in the EU and may be reconsidering where it is most likely to make the greatest inroads.
Ad-media stalwart Walmart saw its Sponsored Product spending growth outpace other platforms, jumping 45% year-over-year. For the fifth straight quarter, advertisers increased spend on Walmart Sponsored Products ads by at least 30% year over year. Despite rising CPCs, advertisers are still seeing a strong return on investment from the format, with sales attributed to Walmart Sponsored Products up 39% year over year.
Ballard said Walmart generates a tremendous amount of traffic to its website and app, while its ad offerings are still relatively new compared to Google’s or Amazon’s. So, its Sponsored Products ad unit is still on the steep part of the growth curve, both in attracting new advertisers and growing same-store spending.
He added, “At a high level, we generally saw a deceleration in digital ad spending growth, which was expected given strengthening year-ago comps.”
Ballard found its surprising to see YouTube prove to be such a large exception to that trend. “But Google has been working on better monetizing Shorts and connected TV has been fueling a lot of growth in YouTube viewing.”
The Tinuiti report also examines whether Google’s launch of AI overviews may be hurting its ad click-through, he said. “And the data suggests that certain segments like phone text ads were more likely to be seeing negative impacts.”
