As the year comes to an end, brands have certainly spent a great deal on ads, and overall ad spend is expected to reach $397 billion in the United States by the time 2024 comes to a close. It’s essential for advertisers to be aware of trends to allocate funds appropriately.
Our benchmarks report will review common ad performance metrics for Google Ads across brands using Triple Whale to monitor and maximize their performance. This analysis includes over 7,000 ad accounts and compares the period of 11/17/2024-12/16/2024 with 10/17/2024-11/16/2024.
READ MORE | A Guide to Ecommerce Metrics
Additionally, we’ll break down the vertical-specific trends with data from the following industries:
Performance for Google Ads has mostly improved month-over-month, with increases in conversion rate (+32.68%), improvement in ROAS (+12.06%), and a drop in CPA (-7.84%). As this is a highly competitive period leading up to and including BFCM, total ad spend has also increased by nearly 66%. This increased competition, with more brands running ads, likely drove CPM (+24.66%) and CPC (+22.22%) to increase month-over-month.
Campaigns that drive visitors (and potential customers) to a website or landing page are a common advertising strategy for many brands. Here, we present the average benchmarks for cost per click (CPC) for 12 industries tracking their advertising effectiveness with Triple Whale for the period of 11/17/2024-12/16/2024 compared to the month prior for Google Ads:
Every industry experienced a rise in CPC, reflecting intensified competition during the holiday shopping season. The most significant increases were in Fashion Accessories (+46.03%), Baby (+45.56%) and Home & Garden (+31.07%). Brands in these spaces were likely bidding aggressively to secure visibility for holiday shoppers.
The highest CPCs by industry were Pet Supplies ($1.87) and Food & Beverage ($1.30). These industries are traditionally highly competitive.
The Clothing industry had one of the lowest CPCs at $0.79, which provides an opportunity for these brands to maximize traffic while maintaining cost-efficiency.
Cost per mille (CPM) represents the cost per thousand impressions on the Google Display Network. Advertisers on Google can choose to set up viewable CPM bids where they only pay for ad impressions that are viewable.
For all industries in this dataset, CPM increased for the period of 11/17/24-12/16/24, which is expected in the holiday season’s competitive ad environment. The largest increases were in Baby (+62.50%), Electronics (+45.54%), and Home & Garden (+39.07%).
The highest CPM was Pet Supplies ($28.75), suggesting that brands in this category had to aggressively compete for ad space due to the holiday demand (although it is typically always an industry that experiences high competition).
The Clothing industry had a relatively low CPM ($12.08), which is cost-effective for brands seeking to scale impressions during this competitive period.
Most industries had an increase in click-through rate for Google Ads during this period (11/17/2024-12/16/2024) compared to the previous month. This can represent high-intent search behavior, and effective ad creatives that are relevant to customers.
Electronics had the highest growth in CTR month-over month (+22.00%), and there was also steady growth in Baby (+12.20%) and Toys & Hobbies (+8.70%). These categories are likely highly sought out for gifts during the holiday season.
Fashion Accessories (-11.76%) and Health & Beauty (-2.99%) experienced a drop in CTR, suggesting challenges in ad engagement, possibly due to oversaturation or less compelling messaging during a competitive period.
All industries had an increase in conversion rate for Google Ads, which indicates shoppers clicking on ads were doing so with high intent and were likely to purchase gifts ahead of the holiday season.
The highest CVR growth was in Sporting Goods (+55.50%), which suggested strong consumer interest combined with effective ad strategies in this category.
Baby (+50.25%) and Health & Beauty (+34.65%) both showed strong improvements in CVR, and these categories likely benefited from holiday gifting trends as well.
The lowest CVR was in Electronics (3.60%), which may fall in line with the higher saturation of advertisers in this space competing for conversions.
CPA dropped for most industries during 11/17/2024-12/16/2024, indicating more cost-efficient acquisition strategies driven by strong seasonal demand.
The lowest CPA was in Toys & Hobbies ($13.07, -12.25% decrease), frequently an industry with high purchase intent for the holiday season. Brands in this category, along with Books ($18.80) and Sporting Goods ($21.47) would have the opportunity to scale campaigns during this period to maximize customer acquisition.
Fashion Accessories ($21.13, +9.77%) and Art ($22.68, +9.77%) experienced an increase in CPA, indicating the rising cost of acquiring customers, possibly due to increased competition or higher bidding.
The industry with the highest AOV was Home & Garden ($166.44), a +3.35% increase compared to the month prior. This industry is expected to have higher-priced items that would drive up cart value.
There was a significant increase in AOV for Electronics (+38.15%) and Art (+37.77%), indicating strong demand for high-value items in these categories. Bundling strategies, higher-priced products, or premium positioning likely contributed to this growth.
Interestingly, the lowest AOV was in Toys & Hobbies ($45.71), which we’d expect would have higher cart values during this time. However, parents may purchase toys in singular from brands rather than several from one. Similar declines in Baby (-9.69%) and Sporting Goods (-8.31%) might also be due to aggressive discounting, increased focus on lower-priced items, or shifts in consumer behavior towards making smaller purchases at this time.
The Clothing industry came in first place with a ROAS of 6.41, a +7.46% increase over the month prior.
There was also strong growth in ROAS for Health & Beauty (+30.38%), Electronics (+24.20%), and Pet Supplies (+24.58%), indicating strong targeting and effective conversion strategies in these industries, during a high-intent purchasing period.
Fashion Accessories (-2.48%) and Baby (-6.41%) both showed a decline in ROAS, likely due to high competition since the ROAS values themselves are still relatively high (4.14 and 5.05, respectively).
Toys & Hobbies (+7.01%) and Sporting Goods (+5.80%) had steady performance, likely tied to consistent demand and effective holiday-season targeting.
With insights from over 7,000 advertisers across twelve different industries, these benchmarks can provide a peek into how Google Ads performed in mid-November to mid-December, a high-competition period ahead of the holiday season. These benchmarks can provide a crucial reference for brands to optimize their Facebook ad strategies to ensure they maximize returns during this peak spending period.
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