Sales that originated from paid search grew on Thanksgiving Day, despite trending down in November, according to statistics compiled by ChannelAdvisor.
For the month of November, shopping across multiple search engines for ChannelAdvisor clients had been down 10.2%. But compared to last Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 24, 2011), shopping across search engines was up 23.9%.
“Looking at the data, we are seeing retailers very heavily promoting their early Black Friday (also known as Thanksgiving) deals and offers,” ChannelAdvisor CEO Scott Wingo wrote on the company’s blog. “That seems to have moved a very large amount of search spend onto Thanksgiving Day that wasn’t usually happening in past years.”
Comparison shopping engine sales were also up, despite trending down 3.8% at 2 p.m. Eastern. Wingo attributed the 14.2% rise in comparison shopping engine sales to toys and electronics.
Two other factors need to be considered for the rise in consumer shopping engine sales. One is that Google Shopping, which went through a major overhaul over the summer, factors into these figures.
And ChannelAdvisor also placed mobile shopping apps into this category, which indicates consumers were showrooming with their smartphones when stores opened for Black Friday business on Thanksgiving Day.