Digital Marketing: Why Search May Not Click for Retailers - Advertising Age - Digital

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Why Search May Not Click for Retailers

Consumers Going Directly to Retailers' Sites for Six Out of 10 Visits

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- As retailers get ready for the holiday season, their first instinct might be to throw as much money as they can afford into search. But recent traffic trends may point them otherwise.

Less than 10% of online retailers' web traffic, on average, comes from search engines, according to an analysis by Nielsen Co.'s Online division.

Nielsen found the majority of retailers' web traffic (61%, on average) comes from people going directly to a retail site -- consumers typing, say, Amazon.com into a browser address bar.

Nielsen's findings are based on second-quarter traffic for 200 online retailers. The analysis shows that comparison-shopping sites, such as NexTag or Scripps Networks Interactive's Shopzilla, collectively accounted for about 1% of traffic. Other referrals, such as affiliate programs or advertising (basically anything that wasn't direct navigation, comparison referrals or search), accounted for the remainder.

The 9.5% of traffic from search also likely included a good chunk of people conducting navigational searches -- typing Zappos into the search bar rather than searching for types of products (shoes) or product attributes (comfort footwear).

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