I do believe if you saw me today, you’d say that I’m absolutely beaming with delight. We had a large paid search campaign for a client of ours targeting the Thanksgiving holiday and now that all the data is in, I’m pleased as punch to say that for a campaign that had impression levels that were above the Account average, we scored double digit CTR’s. Excellent work, pat ourselves on our backs, a job well done, correct?
Well, no. Actually, it should be a “NO!,” and definitely a “NOOO!” if you ask my boss. But I don’t know if I can write that. The reason that the buck doesn’t stop at the CTR’s performance is because we are well beyond the era of judging a campaign by impressions, clicks and CTR. We’re not doing ads in newspapers, radios and magazines, we’re Search Marketing, and quite frankly, search marketing should be held to a gold standard because of its ability to exact a response or action beyond any other marketing medium (in general) besides perhaps face-to-face sampling programs.
“[Social media] is giving us another way to help influence people’s propensity to search.”
Barbara Basney, Director, Global Advertising, Xerox Wall Street Journal, 10/22/09
The Wall Street Journal reported today in an article, “Shift in Search-Ad Tactics Seeks More For Less,” a shift in thinking and strategy around search marketing for advertisers as they seek to capture a broader audience online with greater efficiency. The shift, which includes more relevant targeting and the integration of search and social media, is evident in the marketing strategy of three leading advertisers highlighted in the article.
For example, the WSJ reports telecom giant Sprint Nextel is prioritizing keywords based on where the consumer is in the purchase funnel, including tying to “phrases consumers tend to search for when they are close to making a purchase.”
Volkswagen, whose advertising in the few decades of my life has always seemed to capture the essence of the changing generations, is “driving” efficiency by coordinating the brand’s search marketing program with hundreds of dealers at a local level. They’re also using search and social to support the launch of their 2010 GTI hatchback, bringing mobile, Twitter and YouTube together with an innovative racing game for the iPhone and iTouch.
A study announced today by GroupM Search, comScore and M80, exploring the interplay of search marketing and social media, reveals the dramatic correlation influenced discovery of brands through social media has with search behavior, including more lower-funnel searches and increased paid search click-through-rates (CTR).
The study,“The Influenced: Social Media, Search and the Interplay of Consideration and Consumption,” explored the correlation between social media exposure and search behavior across different verticals, including automotive, consumer packaged goods and telecommunications.
Key findings include:
- Consumers exposed to a brand’s influenced social media and paid search are 2.8x more likely to search for that brand’s products
- There was a 50% CTR increase in paid search when consumers were exposed to both influenced social media and paid search
- There was a 42-point lift in searcher penetration around brand product terms when consumers were exposed to both influenced social media and paid search compared to paid alone
What the study tells us is bigger than correlation, making the topic at large, Discovery. We’ve learned how internet users discover and engage with brands in social media and how that discovery influences search behavior. The findings help us to better understand how the intent expressed by consumers via search is established through social media exposure and the interplay between the two channels.
Of note, it further validates our view that generating upper-funnel awareness and influencing consideration through influenced social media (social media leveraged by a brand advertiser) can produce better down-the-funnel performance with paid media, such as paid search. In our white paper, we expand on the findings and address the value of the synergy between paid, owned and earned media. Additionally, we address the state of media today, challenges advertisers face, and introduce the discussion of Media Delivery and Media Discovery and the new thinking we must consider in making maximizing engagement that drives lower-funnel activity.
As CEO of GroupM Search-The Americas Chris Copeland addresses in the whitepaper,:
“As advertisers come to recognize a need to create greater connections on a one to one level with consumers, they also must acknowledge a shift in their approach to advertising. If they agree with the assessment that media delivery in traditional forms has a limited impact given the threats identified above, then it is equally important to understand the new advertising mandate of media discovery.
Media discovery represents a shift in approach where allowing your brand to be central to the conversation but doing so in a manner that uses your brand, its products and the assets associated with both at the center. Media delivery has been about using buying clout to drive scale and push out paid media to broad swaths of consumers. Media discovery is about using the owned and earned media that a brand can produce to its advantage.”
He later concludes the implications for digital advertising at large:
“At this stage of digital advertising development, the goal has to be investing more intelligently to get people into your brand consideration and drive them through the process to a location well suited for paid media effectiveness, such as paid search.”
On Tuesday, October 6, GroupM Search, comScore and M80 will sharing the findings and implications of the research for the first time publicly. Check it out at SMX East at 1:30 – 2:45 p.m. in Room 1A03.
A study announced today by GroupM Search, comScore and M80, exploring the interplay of search marketing and social media, reveals the dramatic correlation influenced discovery of brands through social media has with search behavior, including more lower-funnel searches and increased paid search click-through-rates (CTR).
The study,“The Influenced: Social Media, Search and the Interplay of Consideration and Consumption,” explored the correlation between social media exposure and search behavior across different verticals, including automotive, consumer packaged goods and telecommunications.
Key findings include:
Consumers exposed to a brand’s influenced social media and paid search are 2.8x more likely to search for that brand’s products
There was a 50% CTR increase in paid search when consumers were exposed to both influenced social media and paid search
There was a 42-point lift in searcher penetration around brand product terms when consumers were exposed to both influenced social media and paid search compared to paid alone
What the study tells us is bigger than correlation, making the topic at large, Discovery. We’ve learned how internet users discover and engage with brands in social media and how that discovery influences search behavior.
The findings help us to better understand how the intent expressed by consumers via search is established through social media exposure and the interplay between the two channels. Of note, it further validates our view that generating upper-funnel awareness and influencing consideration through influenced social media (social media leveraged by a brand advertiser) can produce better down-the-funnel performance with paid media, such as paid search.
In our white paper, we expand on the findings and address the value of the synergy between paid, owned and earned media. Additionally, we address the state of media today, challenges advertisers face, and introduce the discussion of Media Delivery and Media Discovery and the new thinking we must consider in making maximizing engagement that drives lower-funnel activity.
As CEO of GroupM Search-The Americas Chris Copeland addresses in the whitepaper,:
“As advertisers come to recognize a need to create greater connections on a one to one level with consumers, they also must acknowledge a shift in their approach to advertising. If they agree with the assessment that media delivery in traditional forms has a limited impact given the threats identified above, then it is equally important to understand the new advertising mandate of media discovery.
Media discovery represents a shift in approach where allowing your brand to be central to the conversation but doing so in a manner that uses your brand, its products and the assets associated with both at the center. Media delivery has been about using buying clout to drive scale and push out paid media to broad swaths of consumers. Media discovery is about using the owned and earned media that a brand can produce to its advantage.”
He later concludes the implications for digital advertising at large:
“At this stage of digital advertising development, the goal has to be investing more intelligently to get people into your brand consideration and drive them through the process to a location well suited for paid media effectiveness, such as paid search.”
I remember the days of elementary school. Back then, it seemed like the hardest thing you had to deal with was a little homework, what the cafeteria was serving for lunch and whether it was going to be kickball or dodgeball in gym class. Ah, those were the days. They literally gave you time during school to go out and play at recess and, get this, you had the entire summer off! No classes, no homework – only fun. However, all good things had to come to an end, right? That was the dreaded – Back To School. It was the mixture of not wanting to deal with schoolwork and tests combined with getting to see all your friends again. For most, the cycle continued until college graduation, and then it was onto the working world.
This post was written by Chris Copeland and published in MediaPost’s Search Insider, Friday, June 5, 2009
In my last column, I proclaimed search to be going out of business. So what comes next? The answer lies in the question “why?”
Traditional advertising has been in the business of addressing what we know about people and their tendencies. We act based on models of what people do and what that likely means about them in mass. We buy TV to target women in specific demographics with the help of research (focus groups, panels, surveys, and gut instinct) to encourage them to try a specific shampoo that will not only clean their hair, but also create near-orgasmic reactions. Because who doesn’t want a hair care product that will satisfy all needs?
With search marketing, we started to see a shift in advertising that has been well-documented. The days of being tied to push marketing based on what people watched and what those people liked were over. We had a data vault like never before; and inside the vault is the consumer’s expression of intent.
