Asda tops paid search advertising, with more than double the click-throughs of its nearest rival
Asda has been revealed as the leading UK online grocery retailer for paid search advertising according to click-through rates released by Kantar Media company AdGooroo.
Asda
The Walmart-owned supermarket performed better than its rival brands according to the study, which examined google.co.uk desktop advertising activity on 83 branded and unbranded grocery-related keywords in the eight months between January and August 2016.
During that period, Asda generated 5.8 million clicks, giving it a 2.5 million click lead ahead of its closest competitor, Waitrose. Sainsbury’s, the UK’s second largest supermarket chain, lagged way behind in sixth with only 230,000 clicks from January to August.
“The vast majority of clicks generated by the grocery retailers in the study came from ads served on each company’s own branded keywords, indicating that brand awareness and preference play a strong role in a successful paid search advertising campaign for the UK grocery industry,” commented Richard Stokes, chief executive at AdGooroo.
“At the same time, the high number of advertisers bidding on competitors’ branded keywords, coupled with double-digit growth in ad spend in the grocery category, demonstrate an increasingly competitive paid search advertising market for grocery advertisers.”
Asda was also found to have bought up the most competitive keywords (20), followed by Tesco (17), Sainsbury’s (12) and Waitrose (11).
Despite these findings, Asda saw the biggest drop in spend among its retail rivals in the 12 weeks to 14 August 2016, according to Kantar Worldpanel, dropping by 5.5 per cent – hinting that things are less positive in the aisles of its outlets.