Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) will report first-quarter earnings after closing bell today, and analysts at Jefferies have released a report to investors ahead of that report. They said their checks of the data right now indicate that the search giant should have very solid earnings for the first quarter. They’re predicting $10.82 earnings per share compared to the Wall Street consensus of $10.65 per share.
According to the report, the analysts’ checks of Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s Product Listing Ads indicate that more advertisers are running more of this type of ad than ever before. The analysts said this type of ad is especially important because it comes with an image and receives more clicks than the traditional text link ads Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) used previously.
They said their data seems to suggest that Product Listing Ads have about a 10 percent lower cost per click when compared to text ads, but they get 40 percent more clicks. Because of this data, they predict that the cost of this type of ad will likely keep rising in the near-term, which is definitely a plus for Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) because it means more revenue for the company.
In the longer term, they believe Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) plans to change these ads to allow users to buy items without ever clicking through from the search results page.
Jefferies analysts also said traffic and cost per click data for the first quarter appears solid going into today’s earnings report. Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s top ad partner RKG, reported a 115 percent increase in tablet paid clicks and a 133 percent increase in smartphone paid clicks year over year.
They said the one wild card in Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s earnings report will be margins, because it depends on the results from Motorola as well as the volume of Nexus devices sold.
Analysts at Jefferies have reiterated their Buy rating and $1,000 price target on shares of Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG). As of the moment of this writing, Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) shares are down 1.55 percent.
