Archive for the ‘Search Industry’ Category
Nation of digital travellers
Clare Kermond- Sydney Morning Herald
July 1, 2011
THE trend towards becoming our own digital travel agents - researching and booking holidays online - is booming in Australia, boosted by the strength of the Aussie dollar and growing confidence in e-commerce.
A recent report has found a 30 per cent increase year-on-year in traffic to travel websites in Australia. The report also found travel sites to be one of Australia’s most popular internet categories, as well as the fastest growing category.
According to the report by PhoCusWright, nearly one in two internet users visits travel websites, equivalent to an average 5.8 million monthly users.
Senior director of research at PhoCusWright Douglas Quinby said online travel was a mature internet category in Australia and was growing much more quickly than in similarly developed markets in North America.
Frank Grasso, chief executive of search-engine marketing company e-channel Search, said the report supported his view that there had been a noticeable increase in online travel activity over the past six months.
“Australian accommodation properties and other travel providers are significantly growing their online presence through online advertising. It’s very positive to see a growing number of Australian travel and accommodation providers leveraging on this dynamic growth,” he said.
Mr Grasso also said people were making more complex inquiries than they would have a few years ago. ”People are increasingly becoming their own travel agents.”
He said the internet was well-suited to people browsing for travel options. ”It’s really almost purpose-built for searching for travel, when you think of how many millions of combinations your can explore. This kind of searching can be highly effective.”
Traffic Booms for Travel Websites in Australia
Traffic to travel websites in Australia is up more than 30% in 2010, according to
PhoCusWright’s Australian Online Travel Traffic Report, released this
month. Created in partnership with comScore, the publication found travel sites to be the country’s most popular
Internet category and also the fastest growing, at 30% growth year over year in
2010, compared to just 3% for all Internet traffic. Nearly one in two internet users visit travel
websites, or 5.8 million average monthly users.
Senior Director of Research at PhoCusWright, Douglas Quinby comments on the findings;
“Online travel is a mature Internet category in Australia, but it is also
growing much more quickly than it is in similarly developed markets in North America”.
e-channel Search CEO Frank Grasso comments “These results are consistent with the way our
Australian client base has grown and the results our clients have produced over
the past 12 months. We have assisted several clients in leveraging the increased trend with many reporting record 1st
quarter results. We have found an increased demand for our companies’ services and patented technology, DynamicCreativeTM”.
“Australian OTA’s, accommodation properties and other travel providers are significantly
growing their online presence through online advertising. It is positive to see
a growing number of Australian travel and accommodation providers leveraging on
this dynamic growth”.
Australian’s – the boredest people in the world!
Author: Frank Grasso on 2 December 2010
Whilst I sit and wait for another meeting in the plush surrounds of the ‘Googleplex’ lobby here in Mountain View, I have time to contemplate.
I realise this is the first time I have had a quiet moment after a crazy 14 day business trip around the US.
Thanks to a spare five minutes and the free Google guest Wi-Fi, I log onto Google Insights, after remembering a recent dinner conversation with Timothy Hughes from Orbitz (author of Business of Online Travel).
He told me, he had noticed more and more searches appearing in the form of statements – like; ‘I am bored’.
So what does one do when they are sitting in the headquarters of Google awaiting a meeting …….. they Google things, of course.
To my surprise, (and no doubt, probably yours - that is why I’m sharing this) I discover Australian’s are the top searchers of the word ‘bored’, and by a landslide!
If Australians are searching for the term ‘bored’ at 100%, being the highest, then UK are second, searching 61 times, with the US and Canada sharing 3rd place with 56%.
It seems we are the most bored on a Saturday and our favorite ‘bored’ search term is ‘bored bored bored’, with the search term ‘bored to death’ on the rise.
So as marketers how can we leverage on this knowledge, particularly to our Aussie purchasers???
Boredom as per the Wikipedia definition is described as; “an emotional state experienced during periods lacking activity or when individuals are uninterested in their surroundings.”
It seems more and more Aussies are bored and looking for something to do on-line. As marketers, how can we leverage on this emotional state that consumers are so freely sharing with us?
We could create a live dynamic action ad that appears as the consumer searches the word ‘bored’.
Sort of like window shopping but on-line.
It could read …. ‘Bored? Need a change? Get away. 5 star hotel $130 with free breakfast, book by December 30’.
This ad not only plays on the feelings of the searcher, but also provides a call to action, one click and the ad will take the searcher to the website where they can book the offer and escape from their dull and uninteresting Saturday.
SEM and SEO: Agency Vs In-House
In almost 10 years of working in advertising and marketing there is only one aspect that has caused the most arguments in the industry and that is the trade off between In-House and Agency for SEM and SEO. Every company has their own thoughts on the subject and all of them can hold forth with a reasonable argument for their choice. However no matter how effective their reasoning is all of them boil down to four simple points: Time, Cost, Results and Control.
Most companies feel that these four key points will determine the direction that they go when it comes to how they manage SEM and SEO and it is quite obvious why. Combined they will decide how effective the campaigns are and what the bottom line return will be at the end of the day.
More often than not a business that decides to manage their SEM or SEO themselves will have a simple reason for doing so and it will use a combination of all of the above points or the ones that are most important to them. But if you look into them a little deeper it simply does not make financial or rational sense to attempt to self manage an effective SEM campaign In-House if the business has a large number of keywords active in their campaigns.
Aside from the obvious fact that all Agency fees are a tax deduction as a Marketing Expense we need to look at the hidden costs of doing SEM and SEO In-House. Firstly you need to find an expert who is willing to manage it on your behalf and these do not come cheap, if you decide to manage the campaigns without a specialist in SEM or SEO then the person assigned to manage the campaign will have no time to do anything but monitor the campaigns therefore there is a loss of productivity from 1 staff member who is in effect learning on the job. Following on from this is the fact that an active campaign needs to be constantly checked, modified and updated to ensure that there is no wastage and that you are achieving the best possible results. Lastly if you are running a campaign with any number of Keywords over a thousand you need to maintain your quality score through effective Landing Page Management and multiple Creative’s for each keyword as consumers want to be hooked to click on the link rather than just see the same generic Creative for every search term.
When you add all of the above aspects together then it seems obvious that of the four key points highlighted at the start there is only one that stands up as to why a company would manage their SEM and SEO In-House, and that is Control. There is a demonstrated loss of staff time as they try to manage campaigns while doing their core role, results suffer as the Quality Score for the campaign will not be at an optimal level and the costs (both of the campaign and the staff costs) spiral as there is not going to be an effective system of management on what keywords are working and how to alter the Creatives to enhance Click Through Rates.
A good SEM and SEO Agency will manage all of the above on your behalf and consult with the client to ensure that they maintain complete control and understanding of what is going on, once a company has found the best Agency for them then the upfront cost of setting up the campaign and the ongoing Agency fees are actually going to save them money in the long term as a result of better campaign management, higher traffic levels, greater conversion rates and a better understanding of what is working for them now and will work for them in the future.
In short if you are running campaigns with more than a couple of thousand keywords then you are costing yourself money by attempting to manage your SEM and SEO campaigns In-House.
SEM Holiday Seasonality
Search Seasonality
Talk about a fickle search market! What is happening when great keywords get a sudden spike in impressions ? We usually put it down to an event or publicity driving interest in a subject that increases the number of people researching using related terms.What about when your CTR drops likes like a stone all of a sudden. Check those Ads !What about if CPA suddenly takes a jump even though CPC remains consistent ? Have we screwed up the Ad or something. Ah perhaps it’s those new competitors again ? Ahh, the joys of Search Marketing. We constantly Worry about each little blip on the trend lines and wonder what evil force is at work ! But what about when Impressions jump, CTR drops, CPA jumps (too much), CPC is flat and nothing has changed ? Simple really. HOLIDAY season !!! Did anybody notice this in some of the consumer goods sectors Post-Christmas ? Amazing. What is it about holidays that defies standard trends and then returns to normal only after you have blown a bunch of time trying to understand what’s happening ? Are people just too lazy to click that mouse button too many times when they are holidays ? Why do they search and yet not buy ? Well nobody will probably ever know for sure but I do have some thoughts. I suspect a least two things are at work here.
ONE - I think the holiday period provides a lot of non-traditional web customers with the time to “play”. Time to scan around and find that non-critical item that they usually de-prioritise because of a perception that it will take too much time. If this hypothesis has any truth, then this is a great thing for Online Marketing. It indicates growth on the edges of our traditional market.Those that haven’t been buyers in the past are beginning to learn how to use online services and will most likely be back. If they have found what they were looking for quickly and easily, they will look for their next buy online.
TWO - I think the holiday season removes the urgency for traditional online consumers. Whilst on their holiday break they have the time to “shop around” and there is no pressure to buy on the first visit. It may even be that bricks & mortar vendors are now more competitive with their Post Christmas sales and our typical online buyer having the time to check them out. Suddenly the online convenience factor is not such an advantage.
Not sure how to prove or disprove either of these hypotheses but one thing seems certain. Holidays can change the mid-set of the average online researcher. Whether that is because there are more searchers overall or because there is unusual competition it will pay us to remember to remain competitive for the benefit of the new searchers (that are always coming online) even if we don’t feel we want to compete with holiday laziness or bricks and mortar desperation sales. Best of all, it is suggesting to me that there is significant online growth just around the corner when even AFTER the Christmas rush, there are more people searching than normal.
Free Search Engine Marketing Training Video
When a Search Agency shares it’s IP and methodologies it demonstrates a number of great corporate qualities - Transparency, leadership, confidence and a team setting the standards and agenda in search. Great to see the latest initiative by e-Channel Search in launching the first in a series of Search Engine Marketing Training Videos. Thought I’d share the news… see link below to press release. This initiative highlighted to me that there are many interesting & informative videos on search, particularly on YouTube. This one from e-Channel is different concentrating on how to design great creatives, giving it a point of difference. The fact that it is a proven method in an agency environment and assists with the very difficult task of designing a large number of ads (with less brain strain) for clients is fantastic!
http://www.e-channel.com.au/press-releases/ Check out the actual training video here: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=i9rKwFA9sqE
Search media of choice in difficult times
I’ve read several articles over the last few months from a number of authors and publications and it seems to me that online advertising will be the media of choice to get companies through the tough times we are in! Specifically, pay per click advertising, will emerge as the preferred choice for many marketers as the move from banner and other forms of advertising dissipate.
All the research points to search marketing continuing to grow even in the downturn because, I suspect, it is a proven method of successful advertising with a great ROI, is very affordable and highly measurable.
One can only imagine that when the search fence sitters and depleting number of sceptics get over their fear of taking a search ‘ticket to ride’, consumers will have greater choice. In the meantime those with search in their marketing mix will weather the current financial storm and take market share from their competitors.
When Average Position Is Not The Average Position
Most of us within the SEM industry use the various performance statistics provided in Google AdWords to make everyday decisions to optimise and improve our campaigns. Some recent tests provided some interesting (yet very logical) insight into the Average Position statistic which is shown for keywords, ad groups and campaigns.
For those are not aware, this statistic provides an indication of the position in the paid search result list an ad is being displayed for a given keyword, the position is determined by Google using several factors including the landing page Quality Score and your Max CPC. Each keyword is assigned an Average Position and until this point everything appears very straight forward… moving up to the ad group/campaign level it would appear the average position is not in fact (as I would have expected it to be) simply the average of the average position values for each keyword within the ad group!
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Example:The total average of the values shown here should be approximately 1.7, however, when factoring the number of impressions the adjusted average is actually 1.3. |
It seems that the Average Position for each keyword, when viewed from an ad group/campaign perspective, is actually adjusted to include the number of impressions each keyword has received. Therefore the Average Position for those keywords that have had the most searches are given the most weight and the least weight is given to keywords with the least searches. The resulting formula to calculate an ad group’s Average Position, where k=keyword and n=number of keywords within an ad group/campaign:
average_position(k1…n) = sum(average_position(k1…n) * number_of_impressions(k1…n)) / number_of_impressions(k1…n)
This logic allows the importance of each keyword to be reflected the in the Average Position shown for ad group and campaign statistics allow more accurate decisions to be made.
Brand Lift of Search Marketing Part 2: Brand value of Search by Google
In my previous post, Enquiro has proven that search marketing helps lift brands. Now, hear it from Google themselves. Now this is a story to get more people & businesses (especially consumer packaged goods businesses) spending with Google:
According to a recent, rather self-serving study (July 2008), search marketing is an excellent brand-building vehicle for consumer packaged goods advertisers, according to Google. This new study was called “Brand Value of Search“.
2400 survey respondents were exposed to a generic search term like “drinks or make-up.” Then they were asked to take a brand survey which measured aided brand awareness, unaided brand awareness, purchase consideration, and purchase intent.
Awareness decreased when a brand did not feature in four major categories — beverage, cosmetic, food/snack, household cleaning/laundry — but its competitor did.
“Typically, ROI models for search don’t give any value to a search impression, but this study finds that there’s brand value in a search impression, particularly in top-of-mind awareness and purchase intent,” said Kevin Kells, Google’s CPG Industry Director.
By and large, the survey supports the notion that brand presence on a search results page, no matter where, positively impacts brand metrics.
Brand Lift of Search Marketing
Does search marketing help lift your brand? You bet it does. Here’s a report by Enquiro proving this. The research company ran an online survey and interact with a mocked up Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP) to test the effects of branding through Search Marketing.
Here are some results:
• A 16% increase in Unaided Brand Recall by having a brand presence in both the top sponsored and top organic listings of a SERP.
• Users are 5% more likely to recall your brand if you have a top sponsored listing in addition to your organic listing (for non-branded queries).
• The gap between your brand and a competitors grows if your brand is in both the top sponsored and organic positions and theirs is not.
• When a brand is in both the top sponsored and top organic listings a subject is 10% more likely to recall the brand when asked specifically whether or not they would consider it as a purchase.