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Top PPC Keywords: I’d Put Money On That

, Sr. Marketing Intelligence Specialist
6Min.July 27, 2022

The computer/electronics industry spent over $7.5 billion on PPC ads over the past three years.

That’s a pretty penny. It works out to about $1 for every person on the planet spent in just one industry.  

 

And it’s not just electronics, paid marketing spend as a whole went up 12.5% in the last year. So who are the big spenders and what are the search terms they’re fighting over?

Feel free to scroll ahead to the most clicked keywords by industry – but first I’m going to review the top spending businesses and the keyword bidding trends.

Top paid search spenders

The top three spending companies on paid search ads in the world are:

  1. Google.com
  2. Amazon.com
  3. Wayfair.com

They are market leaders and all fall within the industries spending the most on PPC: electronics and ecommerce. In Google’s case, there’s an assumption that it spends so much because it ‘owns’ search.

Additionally, since both Google and Amazon are active across multiple verticals such as ecommerce, streaming services, and more, this is likely why they are the top two spenders.

As for Wayfair sliding into the third spot for the amount spent, it’s important to note, that the popular website does not have any storefronts so it makes sense that it spends more on its online business than competitors such as walmart.com.

Show me the money: keywords advertisers spent the most on

Over $200 million was spent on the keyword “car insurance” in the last 12 months making it the second most expensive keyword worldwide. Unsurprisingly, the most expensive keyword worldwide was “Google ads”.

“VPN” appears twice within the top 20, and “uber eats” and “Disney plus” both had over $93 million bid on them during the time period analyzed. As anyone who has tried to work from home – especially anyone with kids – can attest, it’s not surprising that those keywords are high up on the most purchased list.

Most expensive PPC keywords

KeywordSpend (USD)
google ads$436,942,426
car insurance$252,505,881
shopify$154,643,121
ebay$148,279,270
docusign$140,571,150
vpn$131,445,943
shein$121,946,106
auto insurance$120,406,364
car insurance quotes$119,961,102
instacart$105,408,828
renters insurance$99,450,695
honey$95,395,415
uber eats$93,926,658
disney plus$93,042,762
grubhub$84,389,433
amazon$83,451,131
canva$79,082,625
etoro$75,696,145
etsy$73,867,434
car rental$73,352,909

Most-clicked paid keywords by industry

Traffic doesn’t necessarily mean clicks, although they are related. Depending on your campaign goals you may aim for both, but since clicks are more likely to mean profit, I’m going to focus on the paid keywords driving the most clicks for three major industries.

Top paid arts and entertainment keywords

Entertainment giant, disney.com, made this list twice with “disney plus” driving over 44 million clicks and “disney” winning about 15 million clicks over the past year alone. However, amazon.com is giving the brand a run for its money with “amazon prime video” ringing in 35 million visits and “prime video” scooping up another 33 million.

On a personal note, I was a little surprised to see netflix.com wasn’t on our top paid keywords list for arts and entertainment… are we in the upside down?

 

Most clicked on paid keywords – arts and entertainment

Keyword Paid Traffic
disney plus44,850,487
spotify36,064,038
amazon prime video35,245,901
prime video33,921,874
hbo max27,657,807
youtube26,736,611
disney15,127,797
amazon prime14,144,192
crunchyroll13,156,238
youtube music10,697,691
hbomax6,269,754
vimeo5,620,245
hbo5,365,174
amazon video4,005,074
redbubble3,739,754
disneyplus3,623,395
primevideo3,613,321
peacock3,561,222
zee53,415,789
paramount plus3,385,382

Top paid ecommerce keywords

“Amazon” was by far the paid keyword driving the most clicks in this industry. It single-handedly saw over 355 clicks worldwide over the past year.

Amazon.com’s success with branded keywords doesn’t stop there. It also makes our list of top 20 keywords for this industry with the popular keywords “amazon prime”, “amazon prime video”, “prime video”, and “amazon uk”. Sure, the ecommerce heavyweight didn’t sweep the board but it came pretty close…

Pro tip: Take Amazon’s lead – think about how people search and diversify your keyword strategy.

I’ll let you in on a little secret.

Bid on your brand name, and on possible misspellings of your brand name to drive the most clicks.

Quick quiz. Do you remember if we spell our name “Similarweb” or “Similar web”?

People misspell our brand name in 233 main ways. And, we have them all recorded in multiple languages. Now, we don’t bid on all of them but we keep our finger on the pulse.

There’s a method to the madness. To drive clicks, you should bid on how people type, misspellings, and all.

Pro tip: Bid on misspellings of your brand name also expands your reach by targeting specific keywords related to your most popular business lines. 

Most clicked paid keywords – ecommerce

KeywordPaid Traffic
amazon357,721,907
aliexpress89,108,811
amazon prime53,607,906
etsy35,748,944
shopee34,957,339
walmart33,801,159
amazon prime video26,551,730
ebay25,093,169
prime video21,415,479
alibaba16,248,187
amazon uk12,935,521
trendyol11,438,434
flipkart10,526,442
kohls10,112,335
lazada9,330,692
argos6,990,509
wayfair6,858,458
magazine luiza6,291,787
ali express6,099,856
bed bath and beyond5,705,712

Top paid lifestyle-related keywords

“Shein”, the name of the popular online clothing store, known for its deals, was the most clicked-on PPC term. “Nike” and “Macy’s” round out the top three. Interestingly, one of shein.com’s main competitors, asos.com, had its name “asos” land in 15.

Most clicked paid keywords – lifestyle

KeywordPaid Traffic
shein48,997,138
nike18,679,594
macys14,250,181
uniqlo10,102,457
mango9,904,787
adidas8,741,215
old navy7,916,626
sephora7,644,302
vinted7,526,922
urban outfitters6,494,036
lululemon6,077,323
myntra5,933,430
pandora5,885,114
american eagle5,609,591
asos5,553,107
jcpenney4,830,964
dafiti4,505,090
victoria secret4,443,406
puma4,340,343
bonprix3,859,250

Methodology

Our data covers 40 billion keywords worldwide, and we analyze over 2 terra bytes (TB) of data every day. We used our Keyword by Industry feature in our Keyword Research Tool to create these most-searched and top-trending keyword lists. Then we filtered the lists to show only the paid data, and the relevant industries.

Are you interested in getting more details and learning about more than just the top keywords? Have a look at Similarweb’s Keyword by Industry feature, to analyze, on a category level, how traffic is driven to any category based on real user searches and real clicks–not just click-through-rate assumptions.

How to find the most searched keywords list:

  1. In our Keyword by Industry feature, choose all industries, or choose a specific industry you’re interested in.
  2. Then you can look at worldwide data, or choose a country from the country list.
  3. Sort the data by paid traffic to see the top paid keyword trends.

How to find the top trending keywords list:

Follow the same steps, and sort the data by change.

While you’re at it, give the Keyword Generator Tool a try. It automatically generates lists of keywords based on a seed keyword across any language or market. It can help you find anything from exact search terms and long-tail keywords. In addition to hundreds of keyword suggestions, it allows you to see exact search volumes, trends, and which websites win for each keyword.

Use the keyword generator to: 

Stop Guessing, Start Analyzing.

by Sarah Mehlman

Sr. Marketing Intelligence Specialist

Sarah creates engaging content with over 5 years of experience. She enjoys traveling, family time, baking, and Netflix. Sarah holds a psychology degree from Clark University and lives in Israel.

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