December 14, 2007 | Friday
Paid search investment swells with the influence of the web
By Jackie Danicki - Blogger in Marketing |News |Online Sales |PPC
According to numbers released yesterday, investment in paid search is anticipated to do remarkably well despite what some predict will be an economic downturn:
[P]aid search advertising [is] expected to hover at around 40% of the total online ad spend through to 2012, increasing as a whole from $8.6 billion in 2007 to $16.59 billion in 2012, a 92.9% increase over 5 years.
This is even less of a surprise when we look at additional recent data on just how influential search is on offline as well as online purchases.
The research finds that only 2% of UK consumers are influenced by the retailer experience when choosing gifts for Christmas; instead almost 90% are led by online sources and make decisions before leaving home...The research conducted by ICM on behalf of Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions also reveals over half (54%) of consumers are influenced by top search results…
Other online recommendations - via social networks, recommendation sites, and blogger rankings - can also make or break offline sales. This is in keeping with a multitude of research showing that people most trust “a person like me” when discerning the validity of recommendations and criticism against products and services.
So while it is clear that investment in search will continue to be the way to go for marketers, that method is much more straightforward than trying to get most of the world’s bloggers and social networkers to say good things about your brand. More to the point, it is imperative that marketers stop thinking about bloggers and social networkers and instead focus on customers - many of whom just happen to have blogs or Facebook accounts these days.
Online people are still just people, after all. Whether they are people who are enamoured of your products and services has a great deal to do with how good your products and services really are. Sure, most brands will collect an unjustifiably disgruntled customer or two, but if the tide of customer opinion is that your offering leaves much to be desired, this is feedback well worth giving serious consideration.
More to the point: If social networking and blogs become worthwhile to you for the product improvement suggestions they can provide - the cheapest market research your money simply cannot buy - then the marketing aspect of social media becomes rather less worrying.
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