Searchonomics: Serious & Fun Stats

Feb 27, 2006 - 11:32 am 1 by

Chris Sherman is moderating this session. This panel talks about the business of search, the trends and so on.

Geoff Ramsey from eMarketer.

Five Consumer Marketing Trends that are Turning the World Upside Down: (1) Consumer skepticism and resistance to advertising (2) Increasingly the consumer is in control (3) Media fragmentation is out of control (4) The pressure is on to sacrifice..

Consumer trust i ads has plunged 41% over the past three years. Only 10% of consumers say they trust ads today.

Projection for Ad Spending - 28% growth - $12.3 billion in 2005 (4.6% of total marketing) - 72% of senior marketing execs plan to increase spend online - Marketer's opinions regarding the effectiveness of media for providing measure ROI (61% internet). - US Paid search ads spending in 2005 $5 billion, and in 2009 $10.1 billion. - US Paid Search growth rate, 2005 31%, 2009 15%. - Branded Ads $21.4 billion in 2010 and paid search $33.6 billion in 2010.

Consumer Viewpoint: - 55% growth rate from 04 to 05 - Not much growth in Internet users but a 5% growth in search use. - Expected use of info sources for buying a new car, according to consumers (61% use the internet). - Top 5 search engine attributes considered important or very important -- relevance 90.6%

Marketer Viewpoint - Why do search? - Delivers the specific relevant info consumers are looking for. - Metrics tracked are increased traffic, conversion rates and then click through rates. - E-commerce conversion rates by traffic acquisition source -- direct (4.23%) -- search engines (2.3%) - Reasons search advertisers are using SEM, top reason is branding. - Enquiro; 70% of searchers are "willing" to click on sponsored links -- The older you are the more likely you are to click on sponsored links - SEM spending by tactic -- paid placement 83% -- organic 11% -- but organic is clicked on more, and has a higher conversion rate -- SEO provides a higher ROI then PPC - Paid placement continues to get more expensive - Impact of search must be measured over time and across sales channels. - Share of total time spent online is 4.2% in search - 25% said click fraud is not a significant concern, 39% said it is a significant moderate problem, 35% we haven't even tracked it and 2% never heard of it. - Who's on top among the search engines? -- Share of total online searches in the US --- Google saw rise --- MSN dropped - Google share of US paid search revenue pie is 59%, and 57% of global market. - Google is on top according to advertisers, in terms of effectiveness.

Search and Beyond: - Google (email, im, blog, video search, branding ads, desktop search, phone service, and brokering for print ads.) Soon to come radio and TV? - Google Beyond today ((1) GOOPEC - oil prices, bidding for barrels (2) Missile Defense, Search and Destroy (3) Google Body Searches at Airport (highly personalized relationship with everyone)). - The more people I try to reach with my ads, the less relevant I will be to the individual. Run of site is max reach, less relevant - contextual is more relevant and wide reach and then behavioral is even more relevant but less wide and then we have search which is the most relevant. - Behavioral targeting reached almost $934 million (7%) in 2005. - Its targeting people not Web pages - Local Search $162 million in 2005 and $3,380 million in 2010. - Pay Per Call is going to be huge as well.

Future of Search - Richer - Mobile - Smarter - Vertically Focused

He shows an example of become.com's dhtml search help. You see the search broken by research versus buying.

Bill Tancer from HitWise.

Visit the blog at weblogs.hitwise.com...

- Hitwise captures over 5MM of top search terms driving the traffic to all sites - Navigational and brand search terms continue to dominate the top of the list - MySpace is the hot search query, capturing five of the top 20 terms - Top search terms are a great proxy for brand equity as well as what is top of mind. - Seasonality: He discusses the term "prom dresses" and it shows what happens offline is not always a good way to predict what happens online. - Charts by industry category can reveal changes in user intent - In this case of prom dresses, queries peak in January to Lifestyle - fashion and peak in March to the shopping & classifieds - dept store category.

Search Versus Visits: - Search terms when charted alongside visits to sites or categories can highlight the difference between consumer interest versus marketing generated interest. - In this case, consumer's interest in "diets" decreased when compared to last year, while visits to dieting sites increased (likely a result of online marketing initiatives).

Word Pairs: Negative Word Pairs: - Searches for "online poker" show negative correlation with queries for "sports book" - Pattern represents zero-sum nature of online betting - As major sports seasons gear up searches for "Sportsbook" increase - Since online gamblers often have a limited amount of money to gamble online

Boots vs. Sandals: - This example demos the seasonal switch between sandals and boots as represented by query volume on both terms - Search term analysis reveals that ambiguity in search queries is partly responsible for sharp increase in "sandals" query in January (which is a resort name).

Economics: Gas Prices: - Search term data can provide insight into consumer sentiment well in advance of current leading indicators - In this chart, we see that when gas prices reached $2, it caused a brief spike in searches for hybrids

Real Estate Bubble - Some economic events are driven by consumer sentiment, a prime example is the potential for a real estate bubble. - In this case, a dramatic spike in searches on "real estate bubble" occurred in the summer of 2005. - Analysis of the term revealed that most searches terminated at news sites. - He actually bought and sold his house based on this data. :)

Brand: - Google Pontiac Ad - Chart shows visits to pontiac.com compared to search for "pontiac" - Notice that while both web sites and search term received a nice spike in Spring 2005 (apprentice), searches for "pontiac" increases while the Pontiac web site remains virtually flat - Did Mazda benefit from the pontiac ad? Pontiac.com received 66.8% of the traffic from the term, and the second most visited site (3.4% of traffic) for the pontiac search term was Mazda. - Candice Michelle (Go Daddy commercial) received the highest spike in searches for 2005, Going into 2006 super bowl, go daddy realized a residual lift from 2005, while candice decreased substantially in 2006, the search term "go daddy" realized a substantial gain. - Dancing with the Stars; he charted which star was the most popular in terms of searches online, so he can predict that she will win but then you need to think about who searches on "stacy keibler", and its the wrestlers...who most likely wont be voted on the show.

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