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When analyzing the latest Google Shopping search queries we stumbled across the latest iPhone from Apple as well as its competitor the Samsung Galaxy S6. Motivated by the idea that financing increases revenues¹ we looked at our German customer’s sales data during the last 3 months. Due to the fact that more iPhones 6 were sold we also included the Samsung Galaxy S5 — to get a more balanced data set for our Search Query Analysis of Apple vs. Samsung.
Too long; didn’t read version:
• The Whoop data science team tested the impact of financing related search queries on Apple’s iPhone 6 and Samsung’s Galaxy devices.
• If a search query contains a financing related term the Cost per Conversion decreases, the Average Order Value increases and the Conversion Rate explodes. However, this is only true for Apple devices.
• The relationship between financing search queries and conversion rates for iPhones is significant.
What data was used
The data set consists out of 1803 iPhone and Galaxy search queries, of which more than 10 % contained financing terms like “installed payment”, “deferred payment” or “financing”. Typical spelling errors were checked, corrected and included in the analysis.
What we found out
Here’s what we found out during our Search Query Analysis of Apple vs. Samsung:
1. There is a significant relationship between conversion rates and the financing search queries for Apple’s iPhone 6 using a Chi Squared Test².
2. Nobody searched for financing in combination with Samsung Galaxy S5 or S6 devices.
3. The Average Order Value (AOV) for Apple’s iPhone 6 was almost 30 % higher when the search query included financing terms. As the Cost per Click stayed the same for both groups, the Cost per Conversion for the financing search query group were reduced to one-twentieth!
4. When comparing the Cost per Conversion between Apple’s and Samsung’s flagship devices it turned out that the Cost per Conversion of Samsung’s devices is far below Apple.
5. Comparing only non-financing-related search queries, the Samsung conversion rate is much higher than the Apple conversion rate but the AOV of Samsung is a lot lower. Switching to financing related search queries gives the Apple conversion rate a real boost!
Furthermore, we also checked the same hypothesis for the Apple iPad on a separate data set. The iPad behaves very similar to the iPhone. This confirms the premium brand status of Apple, as even people who can’t afford it really want to buy their expensive products. We hope that you find this Search Query Analysis of Apple vs. Samsung valuable. Stay tuned and follow our blog and social channels for more interesting facts from our data science department!
References:
1) http://www.ibi.de/images/Studie_Ratenkauf_im_E-Commerce.pdf
2) https://www.uvm.edu/~dhowell/methods7/Supplements/ChiSquareTests.pdf
