March 26, 2008 | Wednesday

Marketing Digital Report: Search - Let’s get together

Search marketing cannot work well in isolation. A more integrated approach to campaigns, where offline and online presents a coherent front, results in more consumer click-throughs, as pay-per-click figures show.

The relentless rise of Google and the acquisition battle for Yahoo! speak volumes about the mark that search engines have made. For millions of consumers, they are now an integral part of everyday online life, helping to track down information or the products they desire. In January, Hitwise revealed the number of UK consumers conducting an online search for the word ‘sales’ more than trebled during the Christmas period. There were 249% more UK searches for it in the week ending 29 December 2007 than for the comparable week in 2006. There were also 200% more searches for the word ‘sale’ over the same period.

These results show search-engine use by consumers is continuing to escalate. However, search should not be considered on its own. Retailers that have thought about sales and search marketing in a strategic and integrated way will have had an advantage over competitors with a silo mentality.

There is a growing body of research that shows the benefits of integrated thinking. Close the Loop, a comScore study for Yahoo! that looked at the relationship between search and display advertising, found, on average, exposure to the latter increases online trademark
searches by 26%.

These findings were echoed by Media Contacts research, which used its Artemis tool to assess nearly 10m clicks from campaigns across Europe. This showed a 15%-20% uplift from display campaigns on search conversions in the travel and finance sectors; while in the more heavily branded automotive sector, display had a more pronounced effect, achieving an uplift of 27%.

In addition, Yahoo!’s ‘Research Online Buy Offline’ study demonstrated a 60% increase in offline revenue when consumers were exposed to a brand through both search and display advertising, compared with the impact on revenue when consumers were exposed to only one of those media.

Value of integration

It goes to prove what brands should already know - that search, like all other advertising, does not exist in isolation. People’s actions are influenced by multiple media prior to a decision being made to part with their cash. Therefore, it makes sense to integrate the strategies for all channels.

Gavin Ailes, business director, finance and multichannel, at The Search Works, concedes that it is virtually impossible to identify whether someone used a particular keyword because they saw an ad for the brand elsewhere.

He adds that it is vital to integrate search campaigns with other activity as much as possible - companies should be aware when TV spots are airing, or when there’s a print, email or door-drop campaign, and then upweight the search campaign accordingly. ‘The problem is a lot of big advertisers do not communicate sufficiently within their own organisation,’ says Ailes.

Many marketers focus exclusively on the ability of search marketing as a high-quality traffic driver, but they miss the opportunity to gain a competitive advantage by using it as a low-risk, relatively immediate research tool. A pay-per-click (PPC) campaign can be up and running within minutes. If set up well, especially when research is the primary objective, critical keyword intelligence can often be gathered in a short space of time.

‘When we used PPC as a research tool for a specialist travel company, we found there was an appreciable volume of searches for holidays more than 12 months in advance,’ says Optimize managing director Mike Rogers. ‘Not only did this lead to prioritising updates and enhancements to its website, it also resulted in future direct marketing campaigns starting weeks earlier.’

As important as keyword intelligence is, PPC can also be used to test which product aspects have greatest appeal. For a laptop manufacturer, Optimize used PPC research to test which product benefits resulted in an increase in both click-throughs and online sales. The results had a direct impact on the benefits that were promoted in offline ads.

‘Using PPC as a research tool can do much more than test the effectiveness of keywords or product benefits,’ adds Rogers. ‘It can be used to help optimise content on landing pages and improve the ability of those pages to move a visitor toward converting.’

Optimize also worked with a bank to test the effectiveness of using different landing pages on its website, and their ability to help improve conversions. The results helped to optimise landing pages for a subsequent series of email marketing campaigns.

Online search campaigns are essential if the budget spent through any offline marketing medium is to be maximised. The reactions to all other marketing can be measured using PPC and search engine optimisation. Work done by Latitude for an operator in the holiday sector and insurance clients proves the importance of an integrated approach. Often, spikes in search activity relating to brands occur after TV commercials air.

Looking at travel and insurance brands, the lag between the commercial and spike in search clicks is far shorter with the latter - typically one hour - than the former. This could be because the purchasing of insurance is often a more individual decision, whereas holiday
arrangements tend to involve discussion with family or friends.

In the case of the travel client, analysis of a high-cost TV spot taken in an ad break of GMTV revealed there was no huge spike in clicks later on, as had been the case with its other ads. By addressing search in this integrated way, the marketing team realised using that slot was an ineffective use of budget.

‘The operator found this analysis very useful and made the decision not to use GMTV again - it was a trial slot,’ says Matt Brocklehurst, head of marketing at Latitude. ‘Online campaigns can not only be used to maximise offline budgets and piggyback their success, but also to measure the success of the usually unquantifiable media such as TV, radio and press.’

Responses to offline ad campaigns can reach clients through search, which means search bids need to be relevant to the product, consumer profile and all media messages being broadcast online and offline. ‘Expertise in modelling customer behaviour and overlaying media activity to anticipate trends in search terms will be crucial for maximising return on search budgets,’ says Equi=Media head of insight Iain Dawson.

Building associations

From a brand perspective, building society Nationwide ensures that it includes its associations, such as being ‘proud to be different’ and having ‘no shareholders’, within paid search. ‘Our offline marketing activity is integrated with our online by creating associations between campaign-specific themes and the copy for search engines,’ says Peter Gandolfi, head of brand strategy at Nationwide.

Its integrated campaigns are reviewed at the briefing stage to identify and develop search creative options, which then reflect the key messages from the campaigns’ themes, such as 30% discount for home insurance, or other product messages. ‘We ensure that as the campaign goes out both online and offline, our media agency either drafts copy for search or we use our in-house specialist,’ adds Gandolfi. ‘Our future will be in catering not just for basic text search but in placing content for universal search - something we are looking into.’

Not all search results are positive, however. A Market Sentinel white paper, ‘Search is brand’, quotes Google data to show that search engines can generate links to potentially damaging content. Searches conducted on the UK’s top 50 grocery brands, for example, delivered ‘detractors’ in their top 10 results for 20 brands, including Coca-Cola and Mars.

In an age awash with user-generated content such as blogs and video-sharing sites, website optimisation and brand reputation management, PR must also be factored into any equation. Keeping influential bloggers apprised of news and addressing negative coverage -
such as stories on product quality and reliability - have an important part to play in ensuring search results help rather than damage a brand.

Search-engine marketing is the topic of the first-ever Marketing Digital Masterclass, one of a series of studio-based web chats with experts in digital marketing. The IAB’s Guy Phillipson and Marketing’s Gareth Jones will discuss what’s new in search-engine marketing and give demonstrations of universal, personalised, social and live search.

To watch the Marketing Masterclass, which goes live on 26 March and is sponsored by Latitude, visit http://www.marketingmasterclass.tv.

26th March 2008, Marketing