This post was written by Chris Copeland, CEO, GroupM Search – The Americas, and published in MediaPost’s Search Insider, Friday, February 5, 2010
This weekend, the Colts and Saints will battle to determine the king of the football hill during Super Bowl XLIV. A month into 2010, there are battle lines across the search landscape that also bear watching. These battles will shape the devices, platforms and consumer experience for this year and many to come. Here’s your quick primer of the battles, the stakes and what to watch for to determine who has the upper hand.
‘Twas the week before Christmas, no time left to waste
I’d left all my shopping to last minute haste
Through the store fronts I dashed with no time to spare
In hopes the gifts on my list still would be there.
How many relatives, co-workers, friends?
How many presents to buy, wrap and send?
Overwhelmed by my tally I began my plight
“How on earth does Santa do it?” I wondered this night.
The store shelves near bare, the pickings were slim
Had I waited too long? Was the outlook now grim?
Back to my home, I flew with resolve
Booted up my computer to search, find, and solve.
On Google! On Yahoo! MSN, Bing and Ask!
Find “Last Minute Christmas Deals”, now this is your task!
To the top of the page, to the top of the list
What deals would I find too good to resist?
Digital camera for dad, video games for bro
Coffee maker for mom, a new phone for the beau.
Holiday gift baskets, sent pre-arranged
Desk toys for the Secret Santa Exchange.
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.”
Recently it has become fashionable in technical circles to parrot the line that Google is facing a grave crisis. “They can’t do real-time or social search”, the argument goes: faced with obsolescence, “they‘ll have no choice but to buy Twitter” cry the doom-mongers. Of course if we look at the reasons often given to explain Google’s imminent demise, it soon becomes clear that nothing is clear except that Google is unlikely to wave the white flag any time soon.
New York City is an incredible place when you consider the incredible mix of people and their varying levels of personality, experience and insanity. What’s even more amazing are the things you’ll overhear people discussing in the most mundane places. The incident that inspired my writing this entry was my having lunch in a pizza joint one cool September afternoon when two people sat down at the table in front of me engaged in a heated debate.
‘Twas the week before Christmas, no time left to waste
Recently it has become fashionable in technical circles to parrot the line that Google is facing a grave crisis. “They can’t do real-time or social search”, the argument goes: faced with obsolescence, “they‘ll have no choice but to buy Twitter” cry the doom-mongers. Of course if we look at the reasons often given to explain Google’s imminent demise, it soon becomes clear that nothing is clear except that Google is unlikely to wave the white flag any time soon.
New York City is an incredible place when you consider the incredible mix of people and their varying levels of personality, experience and insanity. What’s even more amazing are the things you’ll overhear people discussing in the most mundane places. The incident that inspired my writing this entry was my having lunch in a pizza joint one cool September afternoon when two people sat down at the table in front of me engaged in a heated debate.