Consumer Online Search Behavior: A Cross-Industry Analysis Based on User-Level Data

Research output: Contributions to collected editions/worksArticle in conference proceedingsResearchpeer-review

Authors

Understanding consumer online search behavior is crucial to optimize companies’ paid search advertising campaigns. Standard measures such as the click-through rate do not account for this search behavior over time, which may favor a certain group of search type and, therefore, may mislead managers in allocating their financial spending efficiently. We analyzed a large query log for the occurrence of userspecific interaction patterns within and across three different industries and were able to show that consumers’ online search behavior is indeed a multi-stage process that heavily depends on industry-specific characteristics. For example, whereas a product search within the clothing industry typically begins with general keywords (“sneakers”) and that search process becomes narrowed as it proceeds by including more specific, e.g. brand-related (“sneakers adidas”), keywords, this behavior is a relatively rare event in other industries (e.g., the healthcare industry). Our method to analyze consumer search processes helps companies to identify the role of specific activities within a respective industry and to allocate their financial spending in paid search advertising accordingly.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationE-Business and Telecommunications : International Joint Conference, ICETE 2012. Rome, Italy, July 24–27, 2012, Revised Selected Papers
EditorsMohammad S. Obaidat, Joaquim Filipe
Number of pages16
Place of PublicationHeidelberg
PublisherSpringer
Publication date2014
Pages72-87
ISBN (print)978-3-662-44790-1
ISBN (electronic)978-3-662-44791-8
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2014
Event9th International Joint Conference on e-Business and Telecommunications - ICETE 2012 - Rom, Italy
Duration: 24.07.201227.07.2012
Conference number: 9
http://www.icete.org/?y=2012

    Research areas

  • Informatics - Consumer behavior, Online advertising, Online search, Query log