Impact of response latency on sponsored search

Abstract

Recent research in the human computer interaction and information retrieval areas has revealed that search response latency exhibits a clear impact on the user behavior in web search. Such impact is reflected both in users’ subjective perception of the usability of a search engine and in their interaction with the search engine in terms of the number of search results they engage with. However, a similar impact analysis has been missing so far in the context of sponsored search. Since the predominant business model for commercial search engines is advertising via sponsored search results (i.e., search advertisements), understanding how response latency influences the user interaction with the advertisements displayed on the search engine result pages is crucial to increase the revenue of a commercial search engine. To this end, we conduct a large-scale analysis using query logs obtained from a commercial web search. We analyze the short-term and long-term impact of search response latency on the querying and clicking behaviors of users using desktop and mobile devices to access the search engine, as well as the corresponding impact on the revenue of the search engine. This analysis demonstrates the importance of serving sponsored search results with low latency and provides insight into the ad serving policy of commercial search engines to ensure long-term user engagement and search revenue.