We launched our New Search Intelligence tool in the UK today and, amongst other enhancements, it includes additional paid / organic search data. One great new feature allows you to measure paid search rates by industry, so I thought I’d provide a preview here. The chart below illustrates the percentage of search traffic that came from paid clicks for a number of key industries during August (4 weeks ending 30/08/2008).

As you can see, the industries that rely most on paid search traffic are Insurance (45.0%) and Utilities (37.4%). Shopping & Classifieds and Travel both rely on paid clicks for a quarter of their search traffic, while Banks and Automotive are also above average users of paid search. News & Media and Entertainment are the least reliant on paid search, with even Government sites receiving a greater proportion of their search traffic from paid clicks.
As the Christmas retail season is nearly upon us, I also carried out the same exercise with the main retail sub-categories. As you can see from the chart below, Appliances & Electronics retailers are most reliant on paid search traffic, while Grocery and Alcohol are the least. Other types of retailer that are particularly reliant on paid search include House & Garden and Computers.

For more details of our New Search Intelligence, click here.
Follow Hitwise UK on Twitter.