Supermarkets in the Consumer's Eye: SEMrush and Brandwatch Analyze Google Search Queries and Social Media Mentions Related to German Supermarkets

BERLIN, GERMANY--(Marketwired - Mar 29, 2017) - The rise of the internet has revolutionized the world of shopping. Many consumers have taken their shopping sprees online, and of those visiting physical stores, many more use the web to research products in advance. But how does grocery shopping fit into this trend? What kinds of information are consumers interested in? How do supermarkets present themselves online, what types of content do they post and how does the community react?

To provide reliable answers, two highly qualified players joined forces and analyzed the online activity surrounding German supermarket chains in an in-depth study. SEMrush opened its all-in-one digital marketing toolkit to measure and evaluate Google search volumes related to supermarkets, Brandwatch employed its proven Social Listening skills to crawl several social networks for relevant mentions. The joint venture combines search data from google.de with social data and provides an instructive close-up view of consumers' search behavior and online conversation related to Germany's biggest grocery chains. An infographic depicting the main findings is available for download.

The study took a close look at eleven German supermarket and discount store chains mainly offering groceries: Aldi, Edeka, Kaufland, Lidl, Marktkauf, Netto, Norma, Penny, Real, Rewe and Tegut. To analyze search demand, the top 100 Google search queries related to each of the chains were evaluated. Social Media mentions were measured by crawling Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, diverse news sites, blogs, boards, review sites as well as video and photo platforms for relevant German-language conversations. The study was conducted from November 22, 2016 through January 5, 2017.

"Data silos have to be opened up to enable better business decisions. Holistic insights are best acquired by combining diverse data sources for analysis. Working with SEMrush was therefore a great pleasure to us. By combining search and social data, we were able to produce some intriguing insights into consumers' attitudes towards supermarkets on the internet." - Susanne Ullrich, Marketing Director DACH/FR Brandwatch.

"Brands in all industries are increasing their online presence and their budgets are being transferred more and more from offline to online marketing. We joined our efforts with Brandwatch to analyse the search intent and consumer demand related to the most popular supermarkets and discounts in Germany. Over 1,000,000 search queries related to online shopping are performed in Google DE monthly, which proves that the demand is enormous. Together with Brandwatch we examined eleven German supermarkets and discounters, and our results prove that even small supermarket should consider going online and advertise. Especially now when mobile search is winning over the desktop and the results on mobile are often local-based." - Olga Andrienko, Head of Global Marketing SEMrush.

Special Offers Attract Most Search Demand

What kinds of information are internet users looking for in relation to supermarkets? What are their search intentions? Almost 40 percent of search queries are conducted by users looking for special offers, leaflets, and products offered by the stores. The second largest share are search queries for information on the chain's branches, for example to find the nearest one to a certain location or to check opening hours. 11 percent are navigational queries. In these cases, users enter the supermarket's name or domain into the Google search box, indicating they have a specific site to visit in mind and use Google for convenience. A further 11 percent of queries are related to special services offered by the grocery chains. Among these are, for instance, cell phone contracts and travel services, Edeka's knowledge portal and Rewe's vacation packages.

Kitchen Appliances in High Demand

Aside from special offers, opening hours and services, internet users also regularly search for specific products. An in-depth analysis conducted by SEMrush showed that the type of product most often searched for in relation to the supermarkets are kitchen appliances. Making a distinction between supermarket chains with and without an online shop yielded interesting differences. For supermarkets running an online shop, most search queries are conducted by users looking for kitchen appliances, followed by TV sets and mattresses. The largest share of search queries related to supermarkets not running an online shop also came from users looking to upgrade their kitchens. However, the most popular search term by far was "Thermomix". This is the name of a specific kitchen appliance by the company Vorwerk. These queries reflect users with an interest in purchasing a Thermomix looking for the cheapest price.

The second most popular product queries directed at supermarkets without online shops is tablets, followed by ice cream, the highest ranking genuine grocery product, in the third place.

Lidl is Talked About Most

On the Social Web, most conversations revolve around the discount store chain Lidl, followed by Rewe and Aldi. This includes mentions on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as well as blogs, boards, and news sites. On Twitter, men are discussing supermarkets far more often than women, accounting for almost 70 percent of tweets. Men and women also preferred different supermarkets to talk about. Men tweeted most about Real, Marktkauf, and Lidl, women's tweets most often referred to Tegut, Kaufland, and Netto.

Our analysis of the supermarkets' own Social Media profiles showed that they most often post content related to raffles and recipes. Raffles generate most user engagement. While recipes are less often commented on or shared, there is high interest for posts containing information on special offers and sales.

Methodology:

The study evaluated Google search queries and Social Media mentions related to following 11 companies: Aldi, Edeka, Kaufland, Lidl, Marktkauf, Netto, Norma, Penny, Real, Rewe and Tegut. The study was conducted from November 22, 2016 through January 5, 2017.

To measure demand for supermarket and discount grocery store chains in Google search, SEMrush evaluated the top 100 search queries for each chain. These are search queries that contain the chain's brand name in combination with other search terms. We excluded search queries containing the brand name only. Otherwise, these would have dominated the statistics while not allowing for a meaningful interpretation of search intention. The search volumes referred to in this study are monthly averages calculated by year.

The Social Media analysis was conducted through text-based search queries using the social intelligence platform Brandwatch Analytics. Only publicly accessible German-language mentions of the supermarkets on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, news sites, blogs, boards, review sites and video as well as photo platforms were included. In addition to tracking the relevant brand names through Social Media Monitoring, Brandwatch Channels was used to evaluate Social Analytics statistics of the companies' Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts where these existed. Kaufland's current Instagram account did not exist at the beginning of the study period and is therefore not included (The account was set up on December 1.)

About SEMrush:

SEMrush is one of the world's leading competitive intelligence suites and an all-in-one platform for digital marketing professionals that provides data and analysis on websites' SEO, paid search, social media and link-building activities worldwide. On top of being a powerful competitive analysis toolkit, SEMrush offers necessary features to help companies optimize their own online presence such as site audit, brand monitoring and content tools.

Twitter/Facebook: @SEMrushDE | Blog: de.semrush.com/blog  | Request demo: de.semrush.com/request-demo/

About Brandwatch:
Brandwatch is the world's leading social intelligence company. The company's flagship products, Brandwatch Analytics and the Vizia platform, fuel smarter decision making around the world.

The Brandwatch Analytics platform gathers millions of online conversations every day and provides users with the tools to analyze them, empowering the world's most admired brands and agencies to make insightful, data-driven business decisions. The Vizia platform distributes visually-engaging insights to the physical places where the action happens.

The Brandwatch platform is used by over 1,200 brands and agencies, including Unilever, Whirlpool, British Airways, Asos, Walmart and Dell. Brandwatch continues on its impressive business trajectory, recently named a global leader in enterprise social listening platforms by the latest reports from several independent research firms. Increasing its worldwide presence, the company has offices around the world including Brighton, New York, San Francisco, Berlin, Stuttgart, Paris and Singapore.

Brandwatch. Now you know.

Twitter: @BrandwatchDE | Blog: Brandwatch Blog | Request demo:brandwatch.de/demo