Why Amazon crushes Walmart in paid search for consumer electronics

Dive Brief:

Amazon is far and away the leader in paid search for consumer electronics terms, investing in over 30,000 terms, more than double the totals for Walmart and Best Buy, the e-commerce giant’s closest competitors, per research by Adthena detailed in a press release made available to Marketing Dive.
Where Amazon really sets itself apart is the results from its paid search. The e-commerce retailer's consumer electronics spend on desktop is 15.35% of all advertising in the category, but it gets 49.65% of the category’s click share, and on mobile its share is 26.87% with a 43.18% click share. The research was conducted during October and November, with more than 370,000 search ads from 179 retailers analyzed.
One reason for Amazon's click share success is that the retailer is able to use pure brand terms instead of generic terms, helping it gaining value from searches on its own branded products like Kindle, Amazon Prime and Fire TV, said Ashley Fletcher, director of product marketing at Adthena, in a statement. The branded searches give Amazon better value in high-volume/low-CPC search conversions, Fletcher noted.

Dive Insight:

The results underscore the role that volume plays in paid search marketing success, with Amazon wildly outpacing the competition in the sheer number of terms it bids against. Amazon’s winning strategy is also based on a high consistency in search engine response page (SERP) ads and the fact it is the most frequent advertiser in the consumer electronics category. As a result, the retailer sees a strong ROI in paid search, where it owns approximately half of all click share in the consumer electronics category while its ad spend share is 15%.

The findings also underscore the challenges others face in competing against Amazon in paid search for consumer electronics. The Adthena research found Amazon’s success includes an average search position for all of its ads is weighted heavily toward the highly valued first, second and third spots on response pages. In comparison, Target's strategy is focused on the second and third positions while Walmart focuses on the third spot, indicating both have somewhat conceded the top spot to Amazon. The exception is Best Buy, which advertises on fewer terms, but its ads perform well against first-position search terms.

Paid search continues to be a cornerstone of reaching online shoppers even as brands experiment other strategies like content marketing and social media ads. Sales from paid search were up 21% year-over-year on Black Friday and 16% on Cyber Monday, according to recent research from Merkle.