Performics Performance Marketing Blog: SEM, SEO, Social & Display

Paid Search Spend—and CPCs—Continue to Accelerate over 2010 into Black Friday

Posted by Ryan Hornacek, Analyst

For the fourth consecutive week, aggregate paid search spend for our retailer clients continued to rise over 2010.  In fact, during the week of 11/6 to 11/12, spend was up 82% over the same week last year.  This continues the week-over-week increases in YoY spend: 38% increase (10/16 to 10/22), 55% increase (10/23 to 10/29), 68% increase (10/30 to 11/5), and 82% increase (11/6 to 11/12).  The big take-away is that we’re seeing heavier investment coming earlier this year than last.  This is a common theme—online shopping and holiday marketing campaigns start earlier and earlier every year.  It will be interesting to see whether these growth rates sustain through this week and next week during the big shopping days of Thanksgiving and Black Friday.

Additionally, with increased spend comes increased competition.  For the third consecutive week, cost-per-clicks (CPCs) are up over 2010.  During the week of 11/6 to 11/12, CPCs were up 26% over the same week last year.

What Do Shoppers Want this Holiday & How Do They Want to Buy It?

Posted by Cristina Lucero, Research Associate

With just over a week until Black Friday, participant shopping trends are shedding light on exactly how participants want to shop this holiday, what they need from retailers in order to buy, and what they plan to buy:

Shopping Behaviors

• Early shoppers spend more and prefer to shop online (Compete).  We're seeing marketers react to this by increasing paid search investment earlier this year than last.
• Shoppers will increasingly turn to social and deal sites this year; there will be an 8% increase in social shopping this year vs. last (Google)

Purchase Considerations
The below infographic from Lab42 shows what retailers need to do to spur shoppers to buy this season.  As you can see, free shipping and sales are most important:

Retailers Employing Old and New Black Friday Promotional Strategies

Posted by Cristina Lucero, Research Associate

This year, retailers are gearing up for the holidays in ways that you’d predict—free shipping, early deals—as well as new ways—QR codes, mobile apps and augmented reality.  As Black Friday looms, we’ve highlighted some innovative, and some more common, holiday promotional strategies from retailers:

• Many retailers are offering Black Friday deals early.  Retailers are calling this “Black November,” and it has already arrived.  For instance, Amazon has opened its Black Friday store, which features discounts through Nov. 25th (Black Friday). 
• For the week ending Nov. 4th, 73 of Internet Retailer’s top 100 e-retailers offered some form of free shipping.  According to Internet Retailer, this is up from 65 retailers during the same week last year.  This increase in free shipping will spur a rise in overall holiday shipments.  According to the Wall Street Journal, UPS expects a 6% YoY increase in holiday shipments (120 million worldwide packages in 2011 vs. 113 million in 2010 during peak shipping week).  Likewise, FedEx—on its busiest day, Dec. 12th—expects to handle 10% more packages this year than last.  (Wall Street Journal).
• Retailers are ensuring that shoppers know as soon as the best deals are available.  Wal-Mart, through its homepage, is encouraging shoppers to opt-in to special deal emails leading up to Black Friday. (Internet Retailer).
• QR codes are an easy way for smartphone users to access mobile holiday content.  For instance, Sears is adorning airports, bus stops and malls with advertising that features QR codes. (Internet Retailer).
• Augmented reality is also playing its part this holiday.  Macy’s “Believe-o-Magic” app allows smartphone shoppers to interact with holiday characters via augmented reality technology.  Users can take photos with the holiday characters to use as holiday cards that are easily sharable through social media.  (Mobile Marketer).

Performics Weekly Research Recap

Posted by Cristina Lucero & Christina Mannarino, Performics Research & Insights Team

Hello Everyone!

Highlighted below are some emerging trends and insights that maybe of interest to you from October 28th. 

United States

Channel Insights

Social

- Social Media Marketing and Darwin: Can Marketers Evolve? (MediaPost)

• Marketers can no longer program participants with advertising; instead, now your imperative is to attract people through unique content and authentic brand experiences.
• The next generation of retail is a blended in-store experience enhanced by digital technologies.
• To succeed, you’ll need to understand where your brand fits into your customers’ lifestyles.

Search

- Google Introduces “Bid For Calls” On The PC. (Google)

• Depending on the amount of bids and how many calls are received, Google will begin to include calls in its ads quality score.
• Advertisers whose paid-search ads are generating lots of calls may see a boost in their AdWords rankings accordingly.
• In other words, “call-through rate” will now be a factor in ranking

- Understanding Google’s Latest Landing Page Quality Score Release. (Google)

• Google announced that going forward, landing page quality will be a larger factor in an ad’s overall Quality Score.
• The behavioral signals that Google traces must therefore be related to what they can track for all advertisers, not just those with Google conversion tracking: bounce rate, propensity to search again in short order, time on site, etc.
• At the end of the day, it will reward advertisers for picking the best page among the available choices for your PPC landing pages, and design those pages for maximum effectiveness in monetizing traffic.

Mobile & Tablet

- Paid Search, Mobile Take Front Seat In Holiday Strategies. (Marin)

• Keep local in mind by separating mobile from desktop campaigns, so the content includes location and mobile-specific content.
• Increasing mobile response rates means marketers should tap into position-based bidding to ensure that ads serve up above the fold.
• Another benefit of having separate campaigns is that you can show location ex­tensions within the ad creative.
• Quickly pointing mobile shoppers to your nearest location can be the difference between buyers walking into your store instead of your competitor’s.

Thanks for your time!

Research Team

Additional articles added to the Research Library:

CHANNEL INSIGHTS

“Mobile Social Usage Soars To Nearly A Quarter Of U.S. Population”

“How Social Media Impacts Brand Marketing”

“Tablet Users Keen On News, Not Payments”

“Stat of the Day: Half of Kids Under 8 Have Access to Mobile Media”

“The Alterian Brand Relevancy Tour”

Performics Weekly Research Recap

Posted by Cristina Lucero & Christina Mannarino, Performics Research & Insights Team

Hello Everyone!

Highlighted below are some emerging trends and insights that maybe of interest to you from October 21st. 

United States

Channel Insights

Search

 - Google To Begin Encrypting Searches & Outbound Clicks By Default With SSL Search. (Google)

• The change to Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) search also means that sites people visit after clicking on results at Google will no longer receive “referrer” data that reveals what those people searched for, except in the case of ads.
• Google analytics will only track SEO generally, not specifically. This means the search terms won’t be associated with a particular visit, because they aren’t being passed along.
• Referrer blocking won’t be happening with ads. If someone clicks on an ad, the advertiser’s site will continue to receive all the same information it currently gets with unencrypted search.

- Microsoft To Turn Bing Into Improved Search Service Via Apps. (MediaPost)

• Search today provides a more programmed experience, but in the future on Bing, it will happen naturally.
• The app would recommend things you likely want to see to provide a much more implicit search, rather than typing into a Web browser and typing 'restaurants near Belleview' and then going back to the map.
• The Bing team will focus on connecting queries, a proxy for intent, with actions, not just information.

- Paid search spending increases 7% in Q3. (Internet Retailer)

• In the United States, 81.6% of paid search spending went to Google Inc., up slightly from the same period last year.
• In Europe, spending on paid search ads increased 20% in the third quarter compared with the same period in 2010.
• As the Yahoo/Bing alliance approaches its one-year anniversary, it shows little impact on the search engine landscape.

Mobile

- Marketers: Mobile Social Networking Scores With Users. (Experian Simmons)

• The study found voice calling applications (usually a native app on the phone) had the highest daily reach, at 62%, followed by messaging (51%), browser (47%), email (45%) and social networking apps (38%).
• Social networking highest the frequency, with people checking social apps on average 17.7 times a day.
• “…It can be appreciated how significant the role of social networking plays in mobile behavior, and marketers may be well advised to focus their attention in this area.”

Social

- The State Of Social Media 2011: Social Is The New Normal. (FastCompany)

• The state of social media is about how people are spending their time, interacting and connecting with one another, and what happens as a result.
• Facebook is now the size of the entire Internet in 2004. And, as Nielsen shows us, at 53.5%, Facebook accounts for the majority of total time spent online.
• Marketers must create an online experience for the social participant through multiple channels in order to engage and connect with them.

International Insights

Demographics

- In Asia, Marketers Pay Heed to a Growing Older Population. (AdAge)

• Companies are so caught up in wanting to be young and hip and they're ignoring this issue that the seniors are going to be a force to be reckoned with.
• In Asia, home to large populations of older participants -- in places such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong -- marketers have found unique ways of tweaking their products or marketing to appeal to golden lifestyles.
• Marketers: don't underestimate the 50-plus set, a group that will have increasing importance as developed economies age.

 

Thanks for your time!

Research Team

Additional articles:

CHANNEL INSIGHTS

“YouTube’s e-commerce push”

“Mobile Commerce Forum Report: Mobile drives big results for a small retailer”

DEMOGRAPHICS

“Targeting Millennials? You Have to Think Outside the Traditional Color Lines”

Performance Never Rests: Our People’s Top Picks

Performance Never Rests: Our People’s Top Picks  

Curious about the latest and greatest tools, technology and toys? Fear not, we turn to our teams and present their take on what’s hot, what’s not, and the issues making waves around the industry.

Gadget Geeks:

Dan P. - Is Sprint betting their company on the iPhone5?

• Sprint committed to $20B worth of iPhone5's, possibly securing exclusive rights in the process... (CNET)

Tet S. - Creative and visionary genius Steve Jobs passes on :(

• Apple’s Visionary Redefined Digital Age (NY Times)

Kristina N. – “I love Amazon more and more! #sold”

• Amazon’s $199 Kindle Fire Costs $209.63 to Make [STUDY] (Mashable)

Performics Weekly Research Recap

Posted by Cristina Lucero & Christina Mannarino, Performics Research & Insights Team

Hello Everyone!

Highlighted below are some emerging trends and insights that maybe of interest to you from October 7th: United States

Channel Insights

Social

-Facebook unveils a new type of advertising unit and measurement tool to help brands communicate better with users. (Facebook)

• The new Insights is designed to let administrators of Facebook fan pages see the total audience their content and ads are reaching, going beyond impressions and "Likes."
• Four metrics will be presented at the top of the page: Total Likes, Friends of Fans, People Talking About This, and Weekly Total Reach.
• "There's a shift taking place inside Facebook where marketers will not only look to connect with their fans, but look to influence the friends of their fans. Enabling word-of-mouth marketing at scale is a huge opportunity for marketers and for Facebook."

Reviewing the Latest Google Eye-Tracking Study

Posted by Sam Battin, Senior Natural Search Specialist

How do People See Universal Search Results?

Recently the folks at SEOMOZ released an eye-tracking study of Google’s search results pages. As you know, today’s results on Google aren’t just a list of ten hyperlinks with a descriptive snippet.  “Universal search” results pages will show you maps if your search query has a local intent; if your search can benefit from an image, Google will show you image thumbnails at the top of the page.  Google will even show you direct links to videos if it determines videos are relevant to your search. 

Participants in the eye-tracking study were shown a variety of Google landing pages that included universal search results like the ones mentioned above.  The most surprising finding was the participant’s attraction to the so-called “map pack” that Google displays in local-intent results.  For example, when you do a search for “pizza” Google will most likely show you several local pizza places, as shown below:

 

 
According to the eye-tracking study, the map pack links in a search like this received a lot of eye-tracking, as did the map image on the upper right side of the page.

Performics Weekly Research Recap

Posted by Cristina Lucero & Christina Mannarino, Performics Research & Insights Team

Hello Everyone!

Highlighted below are some emerging trends and insights that maybe of interest to you from September 30th:United States

Channel Insights

Social

- Google+ Lays the Groundwork for Business Profiles (Google)

• Google+ will soon be unveiling business profiles that will permit companies to create pages and circles like those of an individual user of the social network.
• Currently, GM and Ford are in Beta testing even as the unofficial profiles and squatters spread across platforms.
• "Given Google's strong track record, both +1 and Google+ are platforms that [retailers] are closely watching. [Retailers] are most interested in +1 because of its potential impact on search."

Performics Online Hispanic Trends Infographic

Performics Hispanic Online Trends Infographic

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