As tax season begins its long walk into the sunset, not to be seen again until next year, so go the tax service ads. After a strong presence this year to date, tax software advertisers have faded from the top ten rankings across devices, spending fractional amounts during the month of March compared to past months.

Auto continues to dominate desktop and mobile

Sustaining it's run from last month, auto was again the top advertising category by impression volume on desktop and mobile, driven by Toyota (no pun intended) across both devices, coming in as the second desktop advertiser for the month overall, by impression volume, and fifth on mobile.

 

Here’s a look at how the auto category was buying across desktop and mobile:

 

Source: Pathmatics US Desktop and Mobile Data, 3/1/16-3/31/16.

 

Ancestry.com ranks as the top video advertiser

The family tree mapping service ramped up their video campaigns, jumping three spots to capture the number one video advertiser spot by impression volume for the month of March. The majority of the twelve unique video creatives released by the advertiser promoted AncestryDNA, turning out ads touting, "Statistically 1 in 5,000 Americans are actually your cousins,” with compelling calls to action such as, "Your family is all around you. Find them with AncestryDNA."

 

Although the brand appeared on an average of 62 sites per day, Youtube.com was the top site targeted by a long shot, capturing 99% of the brand’s site impression share online. Using Google AdX + AdSense as their preferred partner, foxnews.com, vk.com and hollywoodreporter.com were some of the other sites where Ancestry.com placed ads.

 

Mobile companies target, well, mobile

T-Mobile joined both Verizon and AT&T in the top advertisers rankings on mobile, shutting out Sprint after making the cut last month. In terms of impression volume, Verizon and AT&T were neck-in-neck during the month of March with 38% and 37% respectively. T-Mobile trailed with 25% of impression volume between the three, and also released the least amount of mobile creatives for the month, at 130.

 

As for purchase channels, each of the three telecom giants implemented differing strategies. Verizon purchased 53% of their mobile impressions through ad networks and bought only 16% of their impressions directly. AT&T also preferred ad networks as their top purchase channel, however, direct wasn’t too far behind. On the other side of the coin, T-Mobile purchased 64% of mobile impressions directly, followed by 23% via DSPs.

 

Here's how Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile compare across impression volume, creatives released, and purchase channel breakdown.

Source: Pathmatics US Mobile Data, 3/1/16-3/31/16.

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