Is paid search overrated? When bricks-and-mortar-only retailers should not use paid search

Data-driven innovations in electronic markets

“…This is also the reason, why the authors raise the question BIs paid search overrated?^, as previous research found positive effects of sponsored search on revenues (usually of online firms), but did not have a good baseline, the counterfactual, to compare it to. Schlangenotto et al (2018) show that in their sample, paid search does help to increase the reach of marketing efforts (coupons in their case), but ultimately does not translate into more offline sales. Thus, they caution brickand-mortar stores not to burn too much money in paid search advertising.…”

“…Contributing to the research stream Bmarketing and sales^, Schlangenotto et al (2018) conduct a novel field experiment in which they empirically test the impact of search advertising on sales for bricks-and-mortar offline retailers (furniture stores in their case). In their paper BIs paid search overrated?…”