Super Retail Weekend: Amazon Is Top Bidder On Rivals' Brand Terms

From Black Friday through Cyber Monday, Amazon was nearly twice as likely to bid on competitor brand terms than its own terms.

That’s according to search-marketing firm Adthena, which named Amazon as the industry’s more egregious “brand bidder” over the super shopping weekend.

Amazon’s Brand Bidding Rate (BBR) -- which Adthena defines as the number of infringing ads an advertiser places on competitor terms, compared to the number of ads they place on their own search terms -- was 182.18%, during the period.

“Amazon’s search apparatus is incredibly vast and virtually unmatched in how sophisticated its strategy is,” Ashley Fletcher, vice president, marketing,  Adthena, notes in a new report.

“Not only [is] Amazon a powerhouse in search to begin with, but when you add in its competitive brand bidding efforts it creates an exceedingly challenging ecosystem for its competitors to operate and find success in,” according to Fletcher.

During the period, Lowes.com came in a distant second (with a BBR of 57.69%), followed by JCPenney.com (with a BBR of 49.08%).

Conversely, Toys “R” Us’s toysrus.com was the biggest target of competitor brand bidding, during the period, followed by Mattressfirm.com.

“Having recently filed for bankruptcy, Toys ‘R’ Us and Mattress Firm experienced the most brand bidding on their search terms across the Black Friday-Cyber Monday weekend,” per Fletcher.

Because Toys “R” Us no longer advertises its own brand, the ill-fated company experienced a Brand Infringement Rate (BIR) -- which Adthena defines as the number of competitive ads placed on a term compared to the number of terms a company places on its own terms -- of 100%.

Mattressfirm.com experienced a BIR of 61.06%, followed by Sears.com’s BIR of 32.46%.

Also of note, Williams-Sonoma.com and Wayfair.com were subjected to high instances of brand bidding, during the period. In particular, Williams-Sonoma.com was targeted by Amazon with 19.17% of the infringing ads on its terms coming from the tech titan.

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