Insurance sector relies most on paid search marketing

Paid search engine traffic is most relied on by companies within the insurance industry, new research suggests.

According to industry commentator Robin Goad, the insurance sector received almost half (45 per cent) of its traffic as a result of paid clicks in the last four weeks of August this year.

Writing on the Hitwise Intelligence blog, Mr Goad noted that the utilities polled in second place when it came to relying on paid search, with the platform generating 37.4 per cent of its web traffic.

The travel, shopping and classifieds industries came in joint third place, with paid search accounting for just over a quarter (25.3 per cent) of its web traffic.

With just three per cent of web traffic generated by paid clicks, the news and media industries came in last, as they depended the least on paid search advertising.

According to industry forecasts by online marketing firm E-consultancy, UK firms are set to spend around £2.75 billion on search engine marketing this year.