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

Yahoo! Axis’s Potential Impact on Paid Search, Organic Search & Display

BACKGROUND

On May 24th, Yahoo! announced its new light-weight browser, Axis.  Axis is a plug-in to desktop browsers and a stand-alone app on mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad.  It’s only available in the U.S. and is still in development for Android devices.  Axis combines searching and browsing.  It populates instant answers and highly-visual previews as searchers type.  On mobile devices, Axis’s visual experience has received rave reviews; CNET wrote, “On the iPad, Axis is simply a great browser.  The integrated search feature is intuitive, and being able to move through search results without having to go back to search makes sense”:

 
Axis works slightly differently on desktops.  People use their preferred browser, and the Axis search box sits on the bottom-left corner of the user’s window, expanding as the user searches:

Performics Weekly Digital Research Recap

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

United States

Channel Insights

Social

-Google+ a Ghost Town as Brands Decamp for Pinterest (AdAge)

• Rather than challenge Facebook and Twitter for mindshare, Google is a distant fourth to Pinterest, with its "pin it" button now appearing alongside Facebook and Twitter
• According to comScore, the average Google+ user spends three minutes on the platform every month, compared to 405 minutes for Facebook users. The average time spent by each Pinterest user per month is 50 minutes, per comScore
• Nevertheless, Google+ still has potential to have an impact on paid search
• Read the full article here

-Proof That Pinterest Drives Sales, And Its Fans Spend Big (Pinterest)

• Visits from Pinterest have jumped 145% since January this year, and, as a source of revenue for stores, Pinterest now contributes 17% of social media traffic--up from 1% in Q2 last year
• Pinterest shoppers are 10% more likely to make a purchase compared to those who arrive from other social sites
• Pinterest pins with prices get 36% more likes than those without
• Read the full article here

Google Knowledge Graph’s Influence on the Search Engine Results Page

BACKGROUND

Back in March, The Wall Street Journal reported that Google would soon give its organic listings a semantic “makeover.”  On May 16th, Google announced some enhancements to the search engine results page (SERP)—particularly the “direct answers” box—that are powered by the Google Knowledge Graph.  The Knowledge Graph helps Google leverage collective search wisdom (i.e. how people search) to transform Google from an “information engine” to a “knowledge engine.”  

For fact-oriented searches, the Knowledge Graph uses semantic analysis to adjust search results and provide direct answers on the SERP.  For instance, the direct answers box for the below “Marie Curie” query shows a short bio, birth and death date, spouse, children, discoveries, education and related searches.  Google stated, “We can now sometimes help answer your next question before you’ve asked it, because the facts we show are informed by what other people have searched for.”

 

The “New” Bing: Implications for Paid & Organic Search

BACKGROUND

On May 10th, Microsoft unveiled a significant update to Bing.  The “new” Bing is rolling out over the next few weeks and will be broadly available in June (users can sign-up here).  It features a three-column interface meant to help searchers act quickly.  Results are organized into columns, and friend/expert input is given high visibility.  According to Bing, “[T]he 10 blue links that search has been predicated on for the last decade no longer makes sense.  Simply put, that’s not how you get things done.”

In addition to the core listings (in the left-hand column), Bing now features two new columns:

• Snapshot: This middle column highlights information on specific places or topics.  In the below example, the snapshot shows—for a hotel query—reviews (Yelp, Citysearch, etc.), a map, photos, rates and check-in/check-out dates.  For a restaurant, snapshot may show additional content like phone, directions, hours and the menu.
• Sidebar: This right-hand column displays recommendations/advice related to your query from friends, experts and enthusiasts—with emphasis on Facebook and Twitter.  Sidebar also features a box for searchers to pose questions to their Facebook friends, who can respond on Facebook or Bing.  Over time, Foursquare, Quora and LinkedIn content will also appear in sidebar.  These social results are now completely separated from the core results.

IMPLICATIONS for PAID & ORGANIC SEARCH

As the new Bing rolls out to more searchers, we’ll pay close attention to the potential impacts on paid and organic search.  Snapshot and sidebar are very eye-catching and may—at least initially—draw attention away from the core paid and organic results.  Furthermore, snapshot pushes down right-side paid listings, thus increasing the importance of appearing in the top-sponsored listings.  We’ve noticed that Bing is testing the number of top-sponsored listings for some queries; traditionally there’s been a maximum of three listings, but—in some instances—we’ve seen four.

Performics Weekly Digital Research Recap

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

United States

Channel Insights

Mobile

-The "Smartphone Class": Always On, Always Consuming Content (eMarketer)

• The smartphone class is not defined by age, gender, income or race. Instead it is defined by its members’ shared behaviors: (1) Consuming content in frequent, small portions (2) Members turn to their phones for instant gratification. Depending on their mood in the moment, gratification might mean completing a quick task or finding a fun distraction. 
• For marketers, this rising content consumption means an increasing number of touchpoints where they can reach participants. 
• eMarketer forecasts double-digit growth in mobile gaming as well as music and video consumption among the smartphone class through 2015.
• Performics recognizes similar smartphone behaviors and trends in the Performics Mobile Search Benchmarks & Trends (Q1 2012) report.

-Nielsen: How U.S. Smartphone and Tablet Owners Use Their Devices for Shopping

• More than three quarters (79%) of U.S. smartphone and tablet owners have used their devices for shopping-related activities
• Smartphones are used more often than tablets for activities on-the-go: “Locating a store” (73% vs. 42% for tablets)
• Tablet owners are much more likely to use their device for online shopping: 42% of tablet owners have “used their device to purchase an item,” compared to just 29% of smartphone owners
• Read about the survey on Nielsen’s blog

Performics’ April Mobile Search Benchmarks: Click & Impression Share Reach New Heights

Posted by Ryan Hornacek, Analyst, Strategy & Analytics

For Performics’ aggregate client base, we saw new heights for mobile paid search in April.  Despite a slight decrease in mobile device search spend (as a percentage of overall search spend), mobile click and impression share achieved record levels.  Furthermore, mobile CPCs dropped and mobile CTRs continued to trend above desktop.  See below for our April benchmarks, broken out by mobile (smartphones) and tablets.

Spend

For the first time since January, the percent of paid search dollars that advertisers spent on mobile devices decreased.  In April, our aggregate client base spent 15.8% of budget on mobile devices vs. 16.5% in March.  Spend on mobile (smartphones) vs. tablets was about 50/50.

 
*Google only; Content & Search partners excluded

Impressions

Despite spending slightly less on mobile search in April, overall efficiencies remained as our clients saw mobile device impression and click share increase.  Paid search mobile device impression share (i.e. mobile impressions as a percent of overall desktop + mobile impressions) rose to 17.8%.  This is the highest level ever, even outpacing holiday 2011.  After a slight post-holiday drop, impression share continued its upward momentum in 2012. Tablets make up just over a third (36.3%) of mobile impressions.

 
*Google only; Content & Search partners excluded

Clicks

April mobile device click share was also the highest on record—at 24.9%—for our clients.  Almost a full quarter of paid search clicks are now coming from smartphones and tablets.  Mobile device click share has risen every month in 2012 (and 250% year-over-year).  Actual mobile device click volume is up over 3X from April 2011.  Tablet click share decreased month over month, but tablet clicks still make up 38.7% of mobile clicks.

Performics Weekly Digital Research Recap

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

United States

Channel Insights

Social

-Has Timeline Increased Engagement on Facebook? (eMarketer)

• All brand pages were required to switch to Facebook’s new Timeline format, as of March 30, 2012, and have been seeing increased engagement as a result
• For brands with less than 1 million “Likes,” comments per brand post grew 40% and “Likes” per post rose 60.3%.  The “People Talking About This” metric also increased, up 67.4%.
• For brands with between 1 million and 10 million fans, comments per brand post dipped 17.43%, while “Likes” per post and “People Talking About This” both increased, by 13.56% and 28.58%, respectively.
• However, a vast majority of all engagement takes place within the News Feed and Timeline has no direct impact on content within the News Feed. Therefore, it is a bit too early to determine exactly how Timeline will affect brand outreach on Facebook going forward.

-Google Adds a "Share" Button for Google+ (Google)

• The new button enables website operators to more easily encourage visitors to spread content among connections on Google’s social network
• The Share button joins the already existing +1 button, which enables Google+ members to indicate that they — for lack of a better term — like a page or an article
• When visitors click the button, they have the option of sharing a page with specific people or Circles in their network
• Read the full article here

Search

-Study: Click-through rate doesn't correlate with conversion; focus on hover and view (Pretarget and comScore)

• A study from Pretarget and comScore revealed that even when a user clicks on an ad, the correlation between that click and a conversion is virtually nonexistent
• Pretarget found that the Pearson correlation (a common correlation methodology) between clicks and a conversion was 0.01, the lowest correlation rate tracked (0=absolutely no correlation, 1.0=strong possible correlation)
• At the high end of the correlation spectrum was what the companies referred to as "ad hover/interaction," or when a web user moves his or her cursor over an ad, thus "engaging" with it. That interaction registered a correlation of 0.49.
• The findings lend credence to those who have long said it's time that the industry makes a serious move away from measuring campaign success based on click-throughs
• Optimizing to viewable impressions or hover time may be a better proxy for a brand advertiser than a click-through rate
• Read the full article here

Performics Mobile Search Benchmarks and Trends (Q1 2012)

Today, we released our Q1 2012 mobile paid search benchmarks, which includes spend, clicks, impressions, CPCs and CTRs for our aggregate client base.  Mobile spend, clicks and impressions continue to soar while smartphone and tablet CPCs remain below desktop.  For our benchmarks, trends and insights, please see the below slides:

Performics Mobile Search Benchmarks & Trends (Q1 2012)

View more PowerPoint from Performics

Performics Weekly Digital Research Recap

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

United States

Channel Insights

Social

-Pinterest is now the third most popular social network after Facebook & Twitter

• According to a new Experian report, Pinterest’s traffic surged 50 percent between February and January of this year, which is growth that’s stunning in itself.  That surge has allowed the site to overtake services like Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Google+ for what Experian says is the third-highest number of visits in February.
• Pinterest attracted 17.8 million unique visitors in February from the U.S. alone. In terms of engagement, Pinterest is winning as well, with users spending an average of 89 minutes per month on site. However, the social network still lags behind Facebook, which has users spending an average of 405 minutes per month on its site.
• Read the full 2012 Digital Marketer: Benchmark and Trend Report here

-Now pinning: Vimeo videos on Pinterest (VentureBeat)

• Pinterest has expanded the functionality of its popular “pin it” bookmarket to support “pinning” Vimeo videos
• Users can click the “pin it” button to fetch Vimeo videos embedded anywhere on the web and add them to their boards
• Vimeo pinning functionality will do more for the video service, which also appeals to connoisseurs of design, than for Pinterest. The inspiration focused social network has earned a reputation for driving tons of traffic (and purchases on e-commerce sites).
• Read the full article here

Performics Weekly Digital Research Recap

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

United States

Channel Insights

Social

-PriceGrabber survey: Pinterest Leads Participants From Pin to Purchase (MediaPost)

• 21% of respondents have purchased a product after seeing a picture on Pinterest.  Respondents who purchased a product were asked to select all items purchased: 33% said food and cooking; 32%, fashion and clothing; 30%, home decorating; and 26%, crafts.
• Searching for recipes remains the favorite interest, with about 70% of Pinterest account holders citing cooking and recipes as the top item pinned 
• Nevertheless, Facebook and Twitter remain more popular than Pinterest. Of the survey respondents with a Pinterest account, 98% said they also have a Facebook and/or Twitter account.
• Read the full article here

-Badoo launching in the US this month (Badoo)

• Badoo already has six million members registered in the states; the London based company has never tackled this overseas market until now
• Instead of hitting multiple cities with its launch, it has focused on New York as its first city to tackle. It is taking an integrated marketing approach with a campaign that kicked off last week in Soho with a 1000 person photo shoot to help people achieve their ultimate profile picture.
• The three-day photo shoot will result in 24 photos chosen to grace billboards and print ads and an online competition for two of those to be selected by other Badoo users
• Read the full article here

Mobile

-IgnitionOne Report: Mobile search ad budgets jump 221% in Q1 2012

• Mobile search accounted for 12.3% of total search advertising spend during the first quarter
• Tablet devices account for 67.4% of total mobile search advertising budgets for the quarter
• The report also found that mobile clicks were up 246.1% year-over-year during the first quarter, growing at a faster rate than in the previous quarter.  The increase points to the growing use of mobile to help people find what they are looking for.
• Read the full article here