Consumer Click Behavior at a Search Engine: The Role of Keyword Popularity

The authors study consumers' click behavior on organic and sponsored links after a keyword search on an Internet search engine. Using a data set of individual-level click activity after keyword searches from a leading search engine in Korea, the authors find that consumers' click activity after a keyword search is low and heavily concentrated on the organic list. However, searches of less popular keywords (i.e., keywords with lower search volume) are associated with more clicks per search and a larger fraction of sponsored clicks. This indicates that, compared with more popular keywords, consumers who search for less popular keywords expend more effort in their search for information and are closer to a purchase, which makes them more targetable for sponsored search advertising.