August 1, 2007
Search Headlines & Links: August 1, 2007
Want a snapshot of the day's search marketing news? Here we've collected today's top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:
From the SEW Blog:
- New Yahoo comScore Study on Shopping Behavior
The study released this week reaffirms that shoppers who pre-shop products on the Web in fact purchase more at off-line stores. - What Else Can You Do to Get Indexed?
SEOs pay a lot of attention to issues like duplicate content, link building, and link structure. But they might want to think more about proper Web development methodology. - 11 Cool Things with HBX Analytics
Eric Enge continues his series on Web analytics applications. - SEW Experts: Taking Off at SES Travel Edition
Kevin Ryan returns from the recent SES Travel event in Seattle with carry on, sage advice. - SEW Experts: The Impact of Comparison Shopping Sites on E-Commerce Sales
Eric Enge discusses comparison-shopping sites, and their impact on buying decisions, resulting in shorter conversion times.
Headlines & News from Elsewhere:
- Strong Media and Ad Results Lurk Within Lukewarm Q4 for IAC, ClickZ
- Google Targets Search Ads on Prior Queries, Ã la Behavioral, ClickZ
- Massive Yahoo Retail Study Affirms 'ROBO' (Local) Consumer Behavior, Search Engine Land
- Managing Search Marketing Campaigns With Social Media Tools, Search Engine Land
- Can My Yahoo Compete With Facebook and iGoogle?, Read/Write Web
- Answer these Ten Questions Before You Charge for SEO Services, SEOmoz
Posted by Kevin Newcomb on August 1, 2007, 11:10 PM | Permalink
New Yahoo! comScore Study on Shopping Behavior
The Yahoo! comScore study released this week reaffirms that shoppers who pre-shop products on the Web in fact purchase more at off-line stores. The study, which was designed to identify whether of search and display advertising had an impact on in-store sales was conducted during April 2006 to January 2007. This large study involved a sample of more than 175,000 comScore panelists and five major retailers including major national department stores, a major apparel retailer and a major supplier of office products. The study used behaviorally and demographically similar panels to compare the purchasing behavior of those exposed to online advertising with the behavior of those who were not exposed.
The results showed that consumers exposed to online advertising tend to research or ‘pre-shop' products online prior to purchase. This behavior ultimately leads to increased in-store sales. The study also found that ‘pre-shoppers' spend an average of 41 percent more in-store when compared to consumers not exposed to online advertising.
To those familiar with current retail shopping behaviors or tracking the growth of online retailing will not find these findings surprising. Although online sales continue to grow, they remain just a fraction of in-store retail sales; however, exposure to online advertising has increased dramatically. Logically, exposure to this volume of advertising has to have an impact, but the impact's dimensions were not spelled out previously.
The Yahoo! and comScore study showed that:
Exposure to online advertising resulted in increased consumer engagement resulting in consumers viewing an average of six more pages during the period in which they were researching compared to those not exposed to advertising.
Incremental sales occur off-line with almost 90 percent of the incremental sales generated by online advertising taking place in-store:
Consumers exposed to online advertising spent an incremental six dollars in-store for every one dollar spent online.
Integrated search and display campaigns create maximum impact leading to deeper consumer engagement and increased sales.
As the use of the Web and familiarity with search advertising has grown, search and online display ads are fulfilling a demand generation function similar to what used to occur with other media. For search marketers this study presents a strong case for using search ads in combination with display campaigns. The study also strongly highlights the need for more thorough online to offline results tracking so that demand generation is accurately sourced and the lift in store sales generated by these online efforts can be quantified and their value accurately assessed.
Posted by Amanda Watlington on August 1, 2007, 12:25 PM | Permalink
What Else Can You Do to Get Indexed?
SEOs pay a lot of attention to issues like duplicate content, link building, and link structure. But they might want to think more about proper Web development methodology. In today's SearchDay, "How to Get More Pages into Google's Index," Jonathan Hochman shares his recent discussion with Dan Crow, product manager for the crawl infrastructure group at Google.
Posted by Kevin Newcomb on August 1, 2007, 11:08 AM | Permalink
11 Cool Things with HBX Analytics
Visual Sciences' HBX Analytics has been around on the scene for a long time. In a discussion with Ali Behnam from Visual Sciences professional services, I got his help in scoping out 11 Cool Things You Can Do With HBX Analytics. Here is a summary of the major headlines:
- Active Viewing / Site Overlay
- Customizable Dashboards
- Navigate the Funnel
- Capture Attribute Data
- Filter on Conversion Types
- Active Segmentation
- Custom Metrics
- Campaign Attributes
- Report Builder
- Active Dashboard to Model What If Scenarios
- Leverage Powerful APIs
The article will give you some ideas as to how these powerful capabilities can be applied to your business.
Posted by on August 1, 2007, 10:00 AM | Permalink
SEW Experts: Taking Off at SES Travel Edition
In today's Searching for Meaning column, "Taking Off at SES Travel Edition," Kevin Ryan returns from the recent SES Travel event in Seattle with carry on, sage advice.
Posted by Kevin Newcomb on August 1, 2007, 12:00 AM | Permalink
SEW Experts: The Impact of Comparison Shopping Sites on E-Commerce Sales
In today's By the Numbers column, "The Impact of Comparison Shopping Sites on E-Commerce Sales," Eric Enge discusses comparison-shopping sites, and their impact on buying decisions, resulting in shorter conversion times.
Posted by Kevin Newcomb on August 1, 2007, 12:00 AM | Permalink
