Examining the Impact of Sponsored Search Results on Choice: An Anchoring Perspective

Abstract

Online sponsored search advertising has emerged as a dominant form of advertising. While prior research has investigated the impact of such advertising as a signal for the advertiser, it has largely neglected the impact of sponsored ads on subsequent choice and evaluations. Using a mixed-method approach combining secondary data from a large hotel aggregator and experimental studies, the present work investigates the effect of anchoring, a commonly used heuristic in the context of online search. This research indicates that a sponsored (i.e., paid) search result acts as an anchor influencing subsequent consumer choice when it is shown as the first-ranked result. The strength of the anchoring effect varies across multiple factors, including the similarity of other search results and the size of the search device screen.

Impact of certification information on consumer behaviour in hybrid retail platforms: empirical evidence from JD.com

“…3.2.1 Search depth. Consumers tend to use an anchor as a judgement criterion when assessing product information online (Bhattacharya et al, 2023). The certification information on the product detail pages serves as a reference point, offering additional information (Xue et al, 2023).…”

“…Consumers tend to use an anchor as a judgement criterion when assessing product information online (Bhattacharya et al. , 2023).…”