••• online research

Study finds what clicks in Web searches

In new research published in the Journal of Marketing Research, Kinshuk Jerath, Liye Ma and Young-Hoon Park used a dataset obtained from a search engine to analyze over 1.5 million user searches for more than a hundred keywords and paint a picture of user click patterns on search engines.

They found that, at the aggregate level, consumers’ click activity is quite low, often clicking only one link after a keyword search. Furthermore, click activity is concentrated on the organic list, which accounts for 95 percent of clicks, rather than the list of sponsored results.

Interestingly, however, there is significant variation in these metrics across keywords, driven by different underlying compositions of consumers searching different keywords. Specifically, the popularity of a keyword, i.e., how often it is searched relative to other keywords, is an important indicator of consumers’ clicking tendencies – the less popular a keyword is, the more a consumer clicks after searching it and the more likely those clicks are on sponsored links. This indicates that, as compared to more-popular keywords, less-popular keywords are searched by consumers who expend more effort in their search for information and are closer to a purchase, which makes them more targetable for sponsored search advertising.

These findings have implications for resource allocation for search-engine advertising. For instance, since lower-popularity keywords obtain a larger proportion of clicks on sponsored links than higher-popularity keywords, firms could get more efficiency from sponsored search advertising on lower-popularity keywords and from search engine optimization on higher-popularity keywords.

••• retail research

Claire’s opens shops in Toys “R” Us

Claire’s, the tween accessories chain best known for its glittery barrettes, plans to open in-store shops at 12 Toys “R” Us (TRU) stores in the U.S. by the end of the year, reports Retailwire’s Tom Ryan. The Claire’s-branded shops have been tested for 18 months inside Toys “R” Us stores in Europe. They will feature Claire’s distinctive purple signs and will sell the “hottest trending” assortment of jewelry, headbands, legwear, jewelry holders and other accessories found in Claire’s stand-alone stores. Claire’s branded shops will also be expanded to 100 Toys “R” Us stores in Europe.

The partnership exposes Toys “R” Us to the young fashionistas who shop Claire’s while also exposing Claire’s to a new customer and to the holiday traffic the toy chain enjoys.

Association with Claire’s works toward TRU’s objective of improving its appeal to tween girls, according to Sean McGowan, managing director of Equity Research for Needham & Co. “Selling Claire’s merchandise probably makes it more appealing to a young consumer (or her mother) since it doesn’t have the issue of being so closely associated with very young kids and babies,” McGowan told MediaPost.