Top PPC Keywords: I’d Put Money On That

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

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

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

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

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: 

• Cluster your keywords by topic, search intent, and business value
• Build your content marketing strategy with SEO-optimized content
• Find gaps and keyword opportunities in your content marketing plan
• Discover the best keywords for your paid search campaigns
• Optimize your PPC campaigns

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.