In 2020, analysts from Ashmanov & Partners interviewed company marketers and found out what is the proportion of those who place and promote their offers in marketplaces, and which marketplaces, in their opinion, are more effective in terms of attracting customers and increasing sales. We have summarized the results of the survey and are sharing the results with you.
More than 230 professionals from 5 industries took part in the survey: e-commerce, medicine, real estate, finance and auto sales
Share of presence and promotion of players in marketplaces
Among the surveyed company marketers, the share of those who post offers on marketplaces, on average, was 60%… The indicator varies depending on the segment, which is displayed on the scale below.
Among respondents from the financial industry, only 41% said they are present in marketplaces. The share among representatives of e-commerce, medicine and real estate varies between 60% -66%, and among representatives of the car market, the share reaches 70%.
Indicators of the share of players’ presence on marketplaces indirectly reflect the degree of competition on the sites between them. Another factor that reflects the degree of competition is the proportion of players who advertise offers on marketplaces, that is, they use advertising tools that provide marketplaces, or optimization, to stimulate an increase in the number of ad views and bids.
Among surveyed e-commerce and automotive marketers, the share of players promoting offers in marketplaces does not exceed 35%; among medical and financial marketers, this figure is about 45%. The greatest activity was demonstrated by real estate marketers: 58.8% of survey participants answered that they were promoting offers within marketplaces.
What platforms are the most effective in terms of sales and customer acquisition?
We offered survey participants to choose from a ready-made list of Top 3 sites that they consider the most effective for solving their business problems and posting their proposals.
How were the lists of sites for each segment compiled?
For example, for e-commerce, we managed to identify 9 priority sites, in medicine – 13. The difference is explained by the fact that the representation of marketplaces varies depending on the industry. In addition, when polling players in the medical industry, the list included not only marketplaces, but also review sites that provide an opportunity to make an appointment with a doctor. The lists were compiled based on publications, ratings and popularity of sites (attendance). We also left the option for contributors to add their own options.
Thus, we adapted the lists for segments:
- for medical market players, the choice included medical service aggregators and review sites.
- for real estate market players – classifieds and agency websites.
The results for the selected Top-3 sites were distributed as follows:
- financial marketplaces: Banki.ru (64.7%) Sravni.ru (64.7%), Fins.Money (11.8%)
- automotive marketplaces: Auto.ru (80%), Avito (60%), Drom.ru (55%)
- medical sites: ProDoctors (64.1%), DocDoc (20.5%), Yandex.Zdorovye (20.5%)
- marketplaces in e-commerce: Yandex.Market (48.4%), Ozone (32.8%), Wildberries (25%)
- real estate: Cyan (76.5%), Yandex.Real estate (58.8%), Avito (41.2%)
Players assess the effectiveness of their presence in marketplaces and aggregators in different ways:
Among the representatives of financial sites, the largest share of those who consider marketplaces to be effective in terms of sales – 70.6% of those surveyed. Among representatives of the car market, this indicator is slightly less and amounts to 60%, among representatives of the market of medical services – 46.2%.
On the real estate market, the picture is different: 76.5% believe that real estate aggregators are more effective in attracting clients, and 15.7% believe that agency websites.
Among the representatives of the medical market, opinions were distributed as follows. 41% of respondents answered that aggregators of medical services are more effective in attracting customers, and 33% believe that review sites are more effective.
Forecasts for the presence of marketplaces in search results in 2021
The search analytics laboratory “Ashmanov & Partners” studies more than 600 factors of ranking of commercial sites in search engines, as well as the structure of search results. According to the Laboratory, the most important trend in search engines is the dominance of large players in the Top 3 Yandex and Google. This trend has been observed in the laboratory’s research over the past few years (the research is available here).
What does this mean for business? In other words, if marketplaces and aggregators appear in a segment, they eventually push other players out of the search.
According to the research “Ranking Factors – 2019” in the Top 3 “Yandex” sites with a huge range of almost 40%, in the top 30 – almost 20%, in e-commerce – more than half and more than a third, respectively; in highly monopolized real estate – 86% and 54%.
Until 2020, a factor such as “Huge assortment” in Yandex Top 3 showed rapid, almost linear growth. The main surprise of the last year – since the beginning of 2020, the chart has turned down.
Expert opinion
Mikhail Volovich, Head of the Search Analytics Laboratory:
“For three years, the share of large sites in Yandex’s search results has been actively growing. In our standard sample, almost half of the sites in Yandex’s Top 3 at the beginning of 2020 had a huge assortment – 45%. This is three times more than in mid-2017. And even in the Top 30, the share of such sites reached 25% (in 2017 it was only 10%). And last year this growth stopped: in the first half of the year there was even a slight drop. Over the past six months, the Top 3 has been hovering around 40%, the Top 30 – about 23%. The situation is similar with other parameters related to the size of sites – for example, with ICS or with the number of links to a site. True, some of them for Yandex’s Top 3 have grown slightly in recent months. The year 2021 will show whether Yandex will resume its movement towards “enlarging” the search results. But the fact that in 2020 it at least stopped, in any case can not but rejoice. ”
One way or another, the use of marketplaces and classifications for additional promotion remains relevant, since they aggregate a significant proportion of search traffic and perform the function of thematic search engines.