by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, September 28, 2017

Smartphone visits to retail sites in fourth-quarter 2017 are expected to overtake the desktop by about 0.09%, but a desktop visit to a retail site is worth about four times as much as a smartphone visit, according to data released Thursday. The good news is that paid and organic search are least prone to most fluctuations in conversion times.

Analysis from Adobe Digital Insights (ADI) of more than 50 billion visits to about 250 U.S. retail websites between January 2015 and June 2017 shows that visits to retail sites are experiencing slow growth and paid search continues to overtake organic traffic in terms of visits per share.

ADI analyzed conversion by time of day per marketing channel. Paid and organic search channels were less prone to the impulse and peaks in conversion times by noon and remained steady during the afternoon. The most revenue during the quarter for retailers came from email in the morning and late night. Social conversions spiked at about 11 p.m.

Overall, the data shows that organic search remains a dominant channel, but it is on the decline, with paid search taking market share.

Paid search has been taking the share of visits from organic traffic to retail sites, which fell 6% in second-quarter 2017 compared with 4% in 2016. Paid search rose from 24% to 45%, respectively.

For retail, it appears that the highest revenue share by hour for paid-search ads comes between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. in which the numbers fluctuate began at 6.1%, rise to 6.3% and decline gradually to 3.3% at 11 p.m. Organic search peaks at 6.2% between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.

Social is still behind search in terms of quarterly visits growth, but it continues to experience significant growth. Paid search rose from 24% second-quarter 2016 to 45% in second-quarter 2017, but social jumped from 51% to 146%, respectively.

MediaPost.com: Search Marketing Daily

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