Amazon Leading All Retailers in Paid Search

Amazon.com is leading the way in consumer electronics (CE) holiday paid search spend, according to a report from search intelligence provider Adthena. Adthena analyzed the search engine marketing activities of 179 CE retailers such as Amazon, Wal-Mart, Target and Best Buy over a two-month period, October-November 2017. More than 370,000 search ads were analyzed. According to Adthena’s analysis, Amazon’s share of CE ad spend on desktop is 15.35 percent, the largest among all retailers studied. On mobile, Amazon owns a 26.87 percent share of CE ad spend.

“The success is largely driven by Amazon's pure brand terms vs. generic terms,” said Ashley Fletcher, director of product marketing at Adthena. “Search queries on terms exclusive to Amazon, like ‘Kindle,’ ‘Amazon Prime,’ ‘Fire TV’ and others offer much better value across the entire online consumer electronics vertical, giving them lucrative, high-volume/low-CPC search conversions. Amazon is the undisputed champion here.” On generic search terms, Amazon owns 16.87 percent share of clicks, putting it firmly as the leading advertiser in the space.

Total Retail's Take: Why is Amazon yet again winning in another area, this time paid search? According to Adthena, it's all about volume. In CE, Amazon advertises on more than 30,000 search terms, which is more than double its closest competitors, Wal-Mart and Best Buy. Furthermore, Amazon's brand ad frequency (branded search terms only) fluctuates between 53 percent to 80 percent on desktop and 86 percent to 96 percent on mobile. These figures are higher than the equivalent frequency rates for competitors on their own branded search terms. This gives Amazon an immense lead over the competition.

"This study confirms the impact of paid search on CE sales," said Fletcher. "Our data suggests that paid search is the key revenue driver which gives Amazon, in particular, velocity and momentum to capture and secure a position as a leading retailer in global territories and markets. Amazon's investment in the channel eclipses that of competitor retailers — which speaks to [its] overall performance.”