I had the pleasure of sitting on a very interesting study performed by Compete and Google yesterday. Here is a brief summary of what it was about.
Event: Uncovering the Full Value of Retail Search Clicks
Description: With the U.S. economy continuing to struggle, retailers both large and small will soon be facing another challenging holiday shopping season. As marketers look to do more with less this year, their online success will hinge in part on the effectiveness of their search engine marketing strategies.
Major questions that were addressed:
What role does search marketing play in driving online and in-store sales?
How do shoppers use branded and non-branded keywords in advance of purchase?
How can marketers measure the effectiveness of paid search and the value of non-converting clicks?
There were 4 major slides from their presentation that I found interesting. Here are the highlights:
Both branded and non branded clicks are important
· Up to 49% of purchasers using search click non-branded terms
· Click behavior prior to purchase 51% branded, 37% non-branded, 12% Both
Click Now Buy Later
-32% of mass merchant purchases occur more than 2 weeks after the initial search referral
Search Influence Beyond the Last Click (This is a fun slide. You can see Google working it’s perspective in here)
· 30% of non-branded search driven purchases happen during the same session
· 17% of non-branded search driven purchases happen later
· 53% of non-search driven purchases happen during a later session. Meaning those who typed in the site directly or referring sites. In the slide they lump the 17% & 53% together for a total of 70% of purchases happen later. When in fact they should really be highlighting the 17%
Search’s Influence on In-Store Purchase
· Up to 43% of online shoppers purchase in store
Couple of things to consider is that Google is only interested in driving click and not conversions. If you are Google you want a presentation like this to reinforce spending in the non-branded category for two major reasons:
1. Measuring ROI on latent purchases is relatively difficult for most merchants.
2. It’s nearly impossible to measure your online efforts on the purchasing behavior happening in store. UNLESS you have a very strong relationship with your business management team that is dedicated to pulling the necessary levers at corporate to get everyone to cooperate.
What are your thoughts?
Tags: Branded Clicks, Compete.com, Google PPC, Non-Brand Clicks
