Author Archives: ghotchkiss

Is There a Free Lunch in Search?

Originally published July 7, 2005 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

I’m pretty sure Yahoo! owes me a free lunch. Perhaps even a dinner. Their new Mindset beta looks suspiciously like a prediction I made two years ago. I thought it would take them three years to get it out. But Yahoo! managed to beat the prediction by a year.

Fearless Predictions… In an article entitled “Search: 2006,” written almost two years ago I made some predictions about what the search game would look like in three years. One of them was the introduction of a new feature by Yahoo!:

“Another innovative new feature is Yahoo!’s Smart Search technology. Extensive user surveys have found that searcher’s feelings about sponsored links changes dramatically, depending on the type of search they’re launching. Generally speaking, the further away they are from a buying decision, the less they like anything that looks like sponsored search results. Yahoo!’s new Smart Search uses the characteristics of each individual search and the searcher’s past history to dynamically build search results based on a user’s predefined preferences. If the search is a less commercial research type request, there will be few (or no) sponsored results showing. If a searcher is looking for the best airfare from St. Louis to New York, Smart Search launches a heavily commercialized search page, complete with instant links through Yahoo! shopping for one-click purchases.

Smart Search marks a continuing attempt by the search industry to keep the user base happy while not jeopardizing the search vendor’s ability to monetize their search traffic. Obviously, Yahoo! would prefer to offer commercialized results for every search to maximize their advertising revenue, but Smart Search is Yahoo!’s response to increasing customer demands to be in control of the level of commercialization on their search portals. To date, no other search portal has put this much control in the user’s hands, and everyone is watching Yahoo!’s experiment to see how successful it is.”

A Striking Resemblance… Now, back to today. Yahoo!’s new Mindset Beta allows the user to adjust a slide rule and tweak the amount of commercialism in their search results. Actually, they go one better than what I suggested. I envisioned being able to adjust the number of sponsored ads that appear. The Yahoo! Beta actually changes the commercialism of the organic search results.

This is an interesting concept. I’ve been climbing on soapbox after soapbox for almost two years now, saying how search is likely to be used during the consideration or research phase, when we’re gathering information, not the actual purchase phase. We may not want results aimed towards generating a purchase.

Now, just as I predicted, Yahoo! is experimenting with putting the control in the user’s hands. At this point, your sponsored ads don’t change. I’m not sure what Yahoo!’s plans are for this in the future.

Tailor Made Search Results In playing with Mindset, I found the interface pretty cool. You slide the selector, and your results update before your eyes. Not everything in their index is included in this beta, but there’s enough to give you a definite feel for the potential. For example, I did a search for Seattle. If you slide the bar all the way to “research” you get sites like Seattle University, Wikipedia’s article on Seattle, the University of Washington, and the official site for the Port of Seattle. If you slide the bar all the way to “shopping” you get Seattle theatre sites, restaurant guides, and for some reason, a Seattle Web cam site. Not sure what that has to do with “shopping,” but it is a beta.

So, a feature that puts the commercialism of the results in the hands of the searcher? It didn’t end up being exactly what I predicted two years ago, but I figure it’s close enough for a free lunch. I’ve got a call in to Jerry Yang. I’ll let you know if I collect.

Search Will Get You the Lead, But the Rest is Up to You

First published June 23, 2005 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Let me tell you a story. In my company, we recently decided that we would invest in bringing a new service in-house. The cost to do so, with required hardware and software, will be about $34,000 U.S. Having more than a passing interest in this particular expenditure, I did some preliminary consumer research. In the textbook case of how we all say search works, I turned to a search engine. I did my search and ended up clicking on a sponsored link because it seemed to be the most relevant one.

So far, a text-book example of search marketing at work, right? Here’s where it starts to go off the rails.

Is Anybody Home? I clicked the site and while it was a little skimpy on product information, it got me sufficiently interested to want more. One thing I needed was pricing, because the site didn’t offer any details on cost.

So, we filled out the form on the site requesting more information. In fact, we clicked the little box saying we wanted to be contacted by a sales rep. Two days later, we still hadn’t heard anything. So we e-mailed the sales contact and 24 hours later, still nothing. This was a European company, with a North American sales office. I called the North American 800-number and left a slightly brusque message. Two days later, nada. I finally called the European head office, on my dime, at 7 in the morning because of the 9-hour time difference, and got someone who spent a few minutes on the phone with me. Unfortunately, they didn’t have much of the information I was looking for. I was told I had to call the North American contact. I explained that I tried this and got no response from my voicemail message. Without the faintest hint of an apology, the person told me, in a tone that indicated that I should know better, the North American sales rep, Ken, was currently in Thailand. Of course he wouldn’t be returning my call. I asked when I might expect a return call. “Oh, in about a week or so. I’ll get Ken to give you a call.”

That was three weeks ago. Guess what? No Ken, no return call, no contact. No sale. I guess they don’t really need the money, not if Ken can keep jetting off to Thailand for weeks at a time.

Ken’s Not Alone… I wish I could tell you that this is an isolated incident, a ripple in the smooth seas of online commerce. But according to a recent study by BenchmarkPortal, 51 percent of North American small- and medium-size businesses (SMBs) studied ignore e-mails from potential customers. The study evaluated 147 SMBs in a number of sectors. It was a follow up to a similar study done with enterprise-level organizations. In that study, 41 percent of the e-mails were ignored.

So, about half of the e-mails from hot prospects were outright ignored. But it doesn’t end there. Of the responses that were received from SMBs, 70 percent took longer than 24 hours (61 percent for enterprise-level organizations). And 79 percent responded with inaccurate or incomplete information (83 percent for enterprise companies).

So let me get this straight. If I’m really interested in a product, there’s only a 50/50 chance I’ll get any answer at all. If I do, there’s a two in three chance I’ll be waiting several days. And when I do get it, it will only give me the information I’m looking for one out of five times. Add it up and my odds of getting a prompt, accurate response are about one in 10.

Why don’t you just hit your prospects over the head with a baseball bat? It will be less painful and over a lot quicker.

Consumers Anonymous In our first research on potential customers using search, we identified something called the Anonymity Threshold. It means potential customers who are researching online won’t volunteer information that would allow contact until they’re serious about buying. They browse anonymously until that time, gathering information and weighing their options. This is why it’s important to give them the information they need to make their buying decision.

Remember the lack of pricing information on the site I used as my first example? The only reason I bothered to initiate contact was that this company has unique technology. They don’t really have a competitor in their niche, and we like their product. I was an extremely motivated consumer. If there were more comparable competition that offered more information on their site, I might never have contacted them.

So, if someone is reaching out to you, they’re motivated. Their money is sitting on the table. They want to buy. You don’t want to give them any more time than necessary to find someone else to buy from. A response should be received in an hour. At the absolute maximum, don’t let these leads go longer than 24 hours. You’ve gone to a lot of trouble to get the lead. Don’t throw them away.

 

 

Blink, Thin Slicing and the Art of Search

First published June 9, 2005 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink, he examines how we make decisions in a split second, and how these intuitive decisions are often more valid than ones we labor over for months.

While Gladwell’s book examines how intuitive decisions are made in a number of situations, it’s fascinating to apply his insights to how we search.

After asking thousands of people to think about they search (through all our research, we’re probably closing in on 3000 now), only one thing has been consistent in our findings. People don’t really know. In some cases, we think we know–but our interactions happen so quickly with the search results page and at such a subconscious level that we’re often at a loss to explain how we chose the results we did. The fact is, the minute we ask people to slow down and start examining their search interaction, that interaction changes and we don’t get a true picture.

When we interact online, we make decisions in split seconds. The rapid-fire assimilation of information and clicking on navigation options is aided by the fact that we can navigate the Web with relatively little risk. If we follow a false lead and end up on a site that doesn’t offer what we’re looking for, the back button is one click away. If only life came with a back button. Wouldn’t it be nice to back out of our mistakes in real life as easily as we can online?

As we navigate, we click merrily along, in a headlong rush to get to our online destination. Only when we perceive that there is increased risk to ourselves–which could present itself as committing some of our personal information, making a purchase, or downloading a file–do we stop and deliberate.

In searching, none of the above risk threats are there. As long as we’re on our favorite search engine, we can’t commit to anything that can’t be corrected with a couple of clicks on the back button.

In our study, we found that people spend an average of 6.4 seconds on a search results page before clicking on a link, and in that time scan an average of 3.9 results. In these few seconds, we assimilate an average of 140 words. Included in those words are between 35 to 60 factors and details we have to consider to make a decision. Yet we take just a few seconds to do this. This is what Mr. Gladwell calls Thin Slicing.

Thin Slicing is the ability to take huge amounts of information and focus in on just what’s important. Then we take these few key pieces of information and make our decision on a subconscious, intuitive level. We don’t know how we made the decision, and if we stop to examine it, we can’t explain the steps we went through. But the decision was made, and in a surprising number of instances, it proves to be the right one. In fact, by trying to take a more logical approach, we often paralyze our decision-making ability.

For the majority of us, the decisions we make while we are on a search results page are an example of thin slicing. Both through cognitive assimilation (actively reading titles and descriptions) and by finding matches to our semantic maps–the group of words that make up the concept we’re search for–through what we see in the listings with our peripheral vision, most of us make decisions on what to click on in seconds.

There are a few deliberate searchers out there who take the time to actively read each title and description before making their decision, but they are few and far between.

What’s the application for search marketing? Understand that placement of keyphrases and words that can catch attention are vital in this split-second environment. This is why position is important. With decisions made in seconds, not a lot of screen real estate is scanned. And every decision is made by weighing the factors in those few listings that were scanned.

So don’t create your search marketing strategies in a vacuum. Explore the competitive environment defined by the search listings for your prime keyphrases. See who else you share the space with, where they’re positioned relative to you, and how you can compete with them for grabbing the attention of your prospective customer. Remember, you can gain them or lose them in the blink of an eye!

Redefining Search Optimization

First published May 26, 2005 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

We search marketers use the word optimize a lot. We use it to talk about increasing our positions in the organic listings, or maximizing our bidding strategies, or fine-tuning our landing pages. Rarely, though, do we use it to talk about boosting a site’s overall user experience. And by turning a blind eye to the site side experience, we could be denying our clients a strategy that could provide the biggest lift of all.

An Eye Opening Experience We’re just wrapping up a usability study for a client who targets 18- to 35-year-olds. These are the most Web savvy people on the planet. In talking to a number of them and watching how they interacted with the site, some things became painfully obvious. First of all, a good portion of screen real estate was devoted to a flash banner that was repeated on every page. Above this banner were some vital navigation links. There were also some interactive features and conversion calls to action, primarily graphical in nature, incorporated into this banner.

Here’s what happened: Within a few seconds of entering the site, most users decided the flash banner was advertising and ignored it. In doing so, they ignored any navigation options that appeared in the top third of every page on the site. In fact, this aversion extended to pretty much anything that appeared to be graphical and interactive throughout their entire site session. The client spent the majority of their Web design budget in creating a series of interactive tools, some very useful, that usually appeared in these ignored areas of the page. But almost all the participants in the study went straight past these to the plain text and pictures portion of the site. Unfortunately, the client didn’t put the most attractive conversion triggers in this section. They were up above in the no-eyeball zone.

The Economic Argument Let’s say you have a sponsored search budget of about $100,000 per month. This generally produces about $250,000 in new business as measured by your success metrics. So, for every dollar you spend, you get a $2.50 return, or a 150 percent net gain.

Now, you could extensively manage your keyword baskets, use advanced bidding strategies, and aggressively reduce your PPC costs by 20 percent, dropping your budget from $100,000 to $80,000. For most companies, this type of ongoing management requires many hours of extra work each month. Let’s say it takes 10 extra hours a week for a person to which you pay $48,000 per year. To realize the $20,000 gain each month, your cost in additional resources is $1,000 (roughly 25 percent of your manager’s time), giving you a net gain of $19,000 monthly. Not a bad return on investment, right? At the end of 12 months, you’re up $228,000.

But let’s say you instead concentrate on improving conversion rates by tweaking the user experience. You undertake a one-time conversion improvement project at a cost of $30,000. By implementing the changes, you boost your conversion rates by the same 20 percent. This bumps the business realized monthly to $300,000. Your budget remains the same, so now every dollar you spend gets you a $3.00 return, or a 200 percent net gain.

The extra business adds up to $600,000 at the end of 12 months. Your one-time cost was $30,000, leaving you up $570,000 for the year, more than twice the return realized from aggressively managing the PPC expenses. Further, optimization will improve conversion rates from all traffic sources, not just your search traffic. And the cost is one time, not on going, although I would certainly recommend optimizing your conversion mechanisms on a periodical basis.

It’s a Matter of Perspective All too often, search marketers mechanically do what it is we do, without tying it to the client’s objectives. Case in point: We were recently talking to a prospect with a very large site that they sell advertising on. The client’s objective is to increase page views so they have more advertising inventory to sell. This site happens to have great brand loyalty, but there are some navigation issues to deal with.

In talking to the client, they mentioned that one of our competitors said that they were going to optimize the title tags and meta data on every one of the many thousands of pages on the site and asked if we were prepared to do the same. I replied that we could, but why? Wouldn’t it be better to optimize the pages with the best potential for traffic gains, and then take the remaining time to find ways to boost their average visitor session from 10 page views to 12 or 13? We calculated that even with a tremendously successful meta tag optimization campaign, they may realize a total traffic gain of a few percent points, while extending the visitor sessions would give a 20 to 30 percent boost in that vital page view inventory.

Sometimes, you have to step back a little to get the full picture. Step back, search marketers, step back.

Search’s Multiplier Effect: The Hidden Value of SEM

First published May 12, 2005 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

Television is toying around with a new pricing model. From now on, you’ll only be charged for the television ads that prompt you to actually take action. If you choose not to visit a place of business or eventually buy something, the advertiser won’t be charged for that ad. If successful in television, the same pricing model will likely be used in all forms of advertising, including newspaper ads, magazine, and radio.

Yeah… right!

One of the paradoxes of search is that the pricing model described above, which is relatively unique to search, has proven to be a blessing and a curse. The idea of paying just for your performing ads and the accountability that it brings has fueled search’s meteoric rise as a marketing channel. Its appeal has been particularly popular with direct marketers, where every single advertising expense is measured against the return it can bring. For these marketers, a pure performance-based pricing model was a gift from on high.

But in adopting this pricing model, search has also done itself a disservice. By not putting any value on the ads not clicked on, search has implied that these ads are worthless. But as more research comes out showing that search’s role in a customer’s buying decision is much more complex and long-term than we thought, it’s beginning to appear that the unclicked search ad could be the bargain of the century. Because search, my friends, does build awareness and those ads do have value.

The Role of Search in the Buying Cycle I’ve talked about where search is typically used by a prospective customer often enough. Research conducted by comScore has shown that potential customers can launch anywhere from two to six related searches in the 12 weeks preceding a purchase. That means two to six interactions with a number of search results pages. Combine that with our own eye-tracking research that shows that the top region of the search results page (referred to in our study as Google’s Golden Triangle) has 100 percent visibility. This includes top sponsored ads and the top three or four organic ads. So, every eyeball for that search will see an ad in this prime real estate. But the advertiser only pays if the ad is clicked. We know that proportionately, only about 15 to 20 percent of the clicks will happen in these top sponsored locations on Google.

So let’s put some real numbers to this and try to get some sense of the value provided. Let’s assume you’re bidding for a term that will get 50,000 searches in a month. You bid enough to capture the top sponsored spot. Your per-click bid price is $1.50. And, we’ll estimate that you capture about 7 percent of all the clicks on the page. One last assumption: Every search does not result in a click-through. So let’s say that 15 percent of the searchers will not find anything on the page worth clicking, and they’ll either relaunch the search or click-through to the second page.

So, in a month, given the above assumptions, you would get 2,975 visitors at a cost of $4,462.50. But you’ve also had your ad seen by 47,025 other people, for free! True, these visitors didn’t click-through to your site… this time. But remember, chances are they’ll be coming back to a search engine and launching a related search at least one more time in the buying process. If your ad comes up again, the reinforced brand recognition might prompt a click-through during this second session.

We Have to Measure the Full Value of Search Search marketers are fond of saying that search is the most measurableof marketing channels, and that’s true, up to a point. I believe one ofthe reasons we don’t give search full value is that we’re not always measuring the right things. How do you measure the value of a split-second glance at a brand name in a search listing? How do you assign a value to the cumulative impact of seeing the same site appear in four or five different searches? I know these things have value, but I’m not sure how to measure it.

We’re very good at measuring the easy conversions. We can track back from a purchase or the submission of a quote request form to see which listing on which engine generated this lead. But we’re not good at measuring subtleties and nuances. It’s difficult to assign values todifferent patterns of site-side user behavior. It requires a conversion-tracking mechanism that extends into every aspect of the business to track offline purchases that are generated by online research activities. And theonline analytics industry is just beginning to grapple with the challenge of getting a more balanced picture of true-visitor value.

The role of search in a customer research session is much more complex than we ever imagined. As we do more research, we’ll get more clarity in regards to how search helps influence buying decisions and the nature of a customer’s cognitive interaction with the search results. As we find these answers,we’ll get better at assigning value to our search advertising, whether the ad is clicked on or not. But until then, recognize that it has a value and enjoy the free ride!

 

I’d Love to Search but Words Get in the Way

First published April 28, 2005 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

The perfect search engine would be a small microchip implanted in our brain. It would act as an instantaneous connection between the vast complexity of our brain and the vast complexity of the Web. To find something, we would just have to think about it and the chip would match that concept with the most relevant destination online.

Unfortunately, such a development hasn’t rolled out of the Google Labs yet. So for now, we have to shoehorn our thoughts into a small quarter-inch by three-inch box on the search engine’s home page. We have to distill our thoughts into a few choice words and hope this provides the search engine with enough to go by. And there lies the ultimate vulnerability point of search. Often, our ideas are too big to capture in one or two words.

Small Words, Big Searches; Big Words, Small Searches We all have different intentions when we go to search. As I’ve mentioned in previous columns, many of us turn to a general search engine when we’re mapping out unfamiliar territory online. When we define the boundaries of our concept, we often leave them vague and inclusive, because we don’t want to rule anything out. So, perhaps I’m at the beginning stages of considering a trip to New Orleans. I haven’t done any research yet, so I’m looking for options and alternatives. My mind is open. This particular canvas hasn’t been painted on yet. So my search is likely to be broad, i.e. “New Orleans.” By keeping it broad, I know I should include everything on New Orleans.

We also use search as a navigation short cut to get to the most appropriate page on the Internet. We want to go directly from point A to B (again, the topic of a previous column) without a lot of detours to get in the way. Often, these types of searches happen well into the research phase. For example, let’s say I had done a lot of research into New Orleans and in a previous session I remember seeing a page on upcoming events on the New Orleans’s Chamber of Commerce Web site. I don’t have the URL and I didn’t book mark it. So I go to the search engine and type in “New Orleans Chamber of Commerce Events.” It’s a very specific search that should take me right where I want to go. I don’t want to see everything on New Orleans. I just want to see this one page.

Mapping Our Thoughts to Words The challenge comes in the search engine trying to interpret my intentions based on my key phrases. Let’s go back to the first example. Although I’ve kept the search broad (“New Orleans”) I obviously have a concept of the type of sites I’m looking for. They could be restaurant directories, accommodation guides, lists of things to do, official visitor sites, or other rich research sources. This is my concept, unstated to the search engine but residing in my mind.

So, when the search results come up, I’m looking at them through a “semantic map” that continues many words that flesh out my concept and might catch my attention. I’m trying to match the ideas in my mind with the results I see on the page. While I searched for “New Orleans” I’m actually looking for anything that might give me valuable and trusted information on how to make my trip to New Orleans more enjoyable.

The Eyes Have It We’ve just recently completed two studies that show the impact of semantic mapping in the search process. One was an eye tracking study and one was an analysis of the importance of different factors in precipitating a click through. Based on these two studies, here’s what seems to happen. The eye looks for a visual cue, generally the phrase we just searched for, in the title. Starting on the top of page on the left hand side, we start scanning down the page in an “F” pattern. While we’re focused on the visual cue, our peripheral vision is open to the appearance of words that might match our semantic map. Even though we didn’t search for any of these words explicitly, their appearance in the title and description has a strong implicit impact on which link we start reading. When there seems to be a match based on a quick scan including both where our eyes are fixated and the extra detail picked up by our peripheral vision, we switch to more traditional reading behavior, reading first the title and then the description from left to right. This lateral activity creates the horizontal arms of the “F”.

As an example, we saw that people searching for digital cameras were presented with two listings from the same site, with almost identical titles. The listings were first and second in the organic results. Both listings promised “unbiased consumer reviews” in the title, after the query string “digital cameras.” We saw fixation points on both of these visual cues. The difference came in what was shown in the description. In the second listing, there were recognized brands mentioned, including Kodak and Nikon. The vast majority of searchers quickly scanned past the first listing and started active reading of the second. It was a better match for their semantic map.

So, what does this mean? Well, it means that it’s not enough to be No. 1. It’s not even enough to make sure you have the query string in your title. To maximize the potential for click through, you have to understand what might be in your target customer’s semantic map and match this through careful crafting of both title and description text. Bidding and organic optimization can put you in the right place, but you’d better have the right message too.

Getting from Point A to B with Search

First published April 14, 2005 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

In preparing for a presentation I’m going to do in a month or so to a group of catalogue publishers, I decided to do some research to see how search worked to bring traffic to some well known online catalogs. What searches translated into traffic for Lands End, L.L. Bean, or Victoria’s Secret?

The more I dug, with the help of Hitwise, the more surprised I got. In each of these cases, variations of the site’s name accounted for one half of all search traffic. With Lands End, these variations totaled a little over 48 percent of all its search referrals. Just over 3 percent of all search referrals were for “www.landsend.com”, the exact URL users could have just typed in their address bar.

With L.L. Bean, the total was about 42 percent and Victoria’s Secret was about 63.5 percent. So, about one out of every two searches that ended up delivering traffic to these sites appears to be someone who was unsure of the actual URL and thought it would be quicker just to search for it.

And that got the mental wheels in motion.

Search as a Navigation Shortcut We’ve always known that this behavior takes place. It’s one of the reasons why “google.com” and “google” perennially shows up as an often searched for term on Google. I think I heard a fellow columnist refer to it as the “people are stupid” factor. But I don’t think that’s it at all. I think it’s the “people are in a hurry” and “people are lazy” factor, and I put myself squarely in both camps.

Yes, we could go up to the address bar and type in the URL. But toolbars put search just a little closer to our cursor. And, if we type the address slightly wrong, the search engine will helpfully ask us “Did you mean…?” It’s just quicker and easier to let a search engine eliminate the frustration of getting the right URL typed into that little box.

The timesavings get even more significant when we’re interested in a short cut to a specific section beyond the home page. For example, a significant percentage of Lands End traffic searched for “Lands End Overstocks.” Yes, you could type in http://www.LandsEnd.com and then navigate through the site to find the overstock section, but you could also just launch a split-second search (Google’s average response time is less than a quarter second) and click right to it. Increasingly, we’re using search engines to take us exactly where we want to go.

Implications for Marketing If we’re using search for a short cut, there are a few obvious implications for the search marketer. First of all, the better known the site and its corresponding brand, the more likely this will occur. Again turning to Hitwise, we find the top 10 referring terms for the appliance and electronics industry contained only one non brand name search (cell phones). The rest of the search terms were for the vendors you’d expect to dominate this industry.

So, well known brands better have their prime real estate secured in the search results. If you’re not No. 1 for the major variations of your brand in the organic listings, you’re potentially losing a lot of traffic to the competition. Even worse, if an attack site has somehow gained top spot for your brand name, you’re exceptionally vulnerable. I’ll give you all a minute to go check this right now on your favorite search engine.

What if you’re No. 4 or 5 for your brand? Our eye tracking research shows that visibility and click-throughs drop dramatically as you move from No. 1 to No. 2, 3 or even worse, 7 or 9. Not holding the No. 1 organic spot in this instance is like letting your competitor put their sign over yours in front of your store.

Secondly, it’s important to make sure search engines are indexing your entire site. If your customers are using search as a short cut to land deep in your site and your site isn’t fully indexed, you’re stranding them high and dry.

A Continuing Trend Let’s face it, trying to remember the right URL, with the right extension, and spell it correctly is a lot of effort when we can launch a search and see the results in a second or two. The easier search will be to use and the more tightly integrated it is, the more we’ll use it as our primary source of navigating the Web. It’s like our own online transporter, picking us up and delivering us to exactly the online destination we wanted, without the messy navigation in between. No longer is online search just a way to find what we didn’t know existed. Now it’s the fastest way to get to even our most familiar online destinations, making a comprehensive search strategy even more important for every online business.

 

Can Search Help Customers be Heard?

First published on March 31, 2005 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

I’m on vacation right now with my family. In fact, as most of you are reading this, I’ll be flying back from Orlando. While here, I saw a television ad that got me to thinking. The ad was for a real estate company, and the premise was this: Wouldn’t it be nice if every company we did business with had a customer satisfaction rating posted prominently? Right up front, you could see if the business you were dealing with rated a 97 percent or a 43 percent.

While the ad’s message was that this particular real estate company did post their approval rating for every potential customer to see, the thoughts this stirred up in me were a little deeper and more fundamental.

We all know that the Internet is transferring power from the marketer to the consumer. In fact, the use of the label consumer is probably no longer valid. Ray Podder, a brand strategist, hates the use of the term. It conjures up images of a vast mindless herd of Pavlovian dogs eagerly consuming whatever marketers shovel our way through advertising. Ray recommends using the term “empowered customers” instead. So, in this column, I’ll follow Ray’s lead and use his wording.

The Internet and the proliferation of self-publishing options give us the power to build or dissemble brands instantly. Suddenly, the intended market is sharing the straight scoop on products, without corporate filters or advertising spin getting in the way. We share our real life experiences from our perspective, not from a Madison Avenue idealized one.

But to get back to the commercial I saw, so far no one with enough market traction has taken up the task of aggregating this information into an easy-to-digest rating system. There is no “seal of approval” that comes from customers. But for the first time, the potential is there.

There have been a few players who have attempted to do this. Trip Advisor is one that shares real-world ratings of hotels and other travel related services. And Epinions.com has also offered readers the opportunity to post reviews on a number of products. But neither service has tapped into the online market to any great extent. According to Alexa, Epinions.com is ranked around 1,000 for site popularity. It hasn’t gained the critical mass needed to turn it into a hot online property. And considering that it’s been around for some time, it may never get there.

This, by a long and circuitous route, leads me to the topic of this column. How about search engines? Can they provide customers with a podium to be heard from? They’re already the most popular sites online, so critical mass and traffic certainly won’t be a problem.

Search engines rank sites by their own criteria of what makes a good site or a substandard one. They’re already in the business of aggregating information and using it to rank alternatives for the user. They are generally considered objective and non-partisan. And they’ve already drawn a line between their advertising and the editorial section of their page that is recognized by most users. And as they continue to become more vertical (Ask Jeeves’ recent acquisition will certainly heat up this race) it seems they’ll be looking for a competitive advantage to offer their users. This seems to be a compelling one.

We are on the nexus of the switch to the customer-controlled marketing model. At this point, most empowered customers are totally unaware they wield this much power. Only the adventurous few who have staked their territory online have learned how the Internet gives each of us a powerful voice that can reach millions. In a few spectacular and oft quoted examples, online buzz has synergized to the point where new product introductions took off. Online takes word-of-mouth to a whole new dimension. Like many thing in our fragile society, the relationship between marketers and customers is on the verge of a fundamental and earth-shaking shift. Advertisers, don’t tell us how we’re supposed to feel about your products. We’ll tell you, and you’d better listen!

As a relevant aside, we’re starting to hear more and more from companies who are fighting customer launched attack sites who have achieved higher rankings on search engines than the official site for the brand. In this case, the balance of power has swung from the advertiser to the customer. This is unfamiliar territory for the corporate world.

But to this point, there’s no online destination with enough market penetration and critical mass that is dedicated to acting as the focal point for customer opinion. In fact, most customers turn to search engines when looking for published information on a product and sift through blog and forum postings. If they’re already turning to search, why not close the loop and help aggregate the information they’re looking for? Why not find a way to measure online buzz, both good and bad, and present it to us in an easily understood way?

This makes even more sense when you consider that search will aggressively try to place itself at the intersection of all online customer behavior. The areas they’re currently looking to control include shopping search and local search. Both have huge potential wins from a revenue potential. If customers could also find an easily digested capsule of popular opinion to help in the making of their decision, I believe it would present a compelling package.

And that places Ask Jeeves in a unique situation. As a recent acquisition of IAC, they join the corporate family of Citysearch, Expedia, and Match.com. Suddenly, Ask Jeeves is in the ideal position to pursue a vertical strategy. And a vertical search destination would be a great place to start a customer rating system. In fact, Citysearch already has both reader and editorial ratings for restaurants and other tourist destinations. After gaining a foothold here, it could be expanded to all the Ask Jeeves search properties.

There’s no doubt that customers will speak, and speak loudly online. But will search engines provide them the forum to be heard?

A Battle Plan for MSN Search: Innovation and Integration, not Inundation

First published March 17, 2005 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

We know Microsoft wants to win the search battle. Bill Gates has gone on record repeatedly and publicly saying his biggest business regret is not having recognized the importance of Internet search soon enough (this would be the same Bill Gates who said the Internet would never amount to much). And during the Super Bowl, an ad for MSN Search invited millions to try the new, more precise, more powerful search engine.

Rumor has it that Microsoft has a gargantuan battle chest set aside for further advertising. The intention is clear. We will keep being hammered by MSN Search ads until we give in and give up on Google.

But at the Search Engine Strategies Conference in New York, Jupiter Media Analyst Gary Stein reminded us of something. Google got to where they are with a total ad budget of… $0. They just built a better search engine.

I think the future success of MSN lies not in showcase television ads, but in giving us a reason to switch.

Google Is Not Invincible It sometimes appears that Google has a stranglehold on search. Take a room full of people pretty much anywhere on the planet and it’s a safe bet that most of them will be Google users. But recent research has shown that there may be a few stress fractures showing in our love affair with Google. I don’t think it’s because Google has done anything overtly to cause us to look elsewhere. It’s just that they don’t have the clear performance advantage they once did.

Again, Gary Stein had an excellent point. There’s no significant user pain involved in switching search engines. You don’t have to reinstall software, reformat files, or change computers. One day you’re using Google, and the next, MSN. It’s that easy. In fact, you can switch search engines in the middle of a task. Millions of people do it every day. Google’s brand equity can disappear in the time it takes to click a mouse.

Putting Search One Click Away In any type of measurement of search engine market share, there emerges an interesting contradiction that speaks of another vulnerable area for Google. If you do a survey and ask people what their preferred search engine is, my bet is that at least 75 percent or more will say Google. In the last survey we did with 1,600 participants, the number was almost 83 percent. Yet, when you look at Nielsen or comScore’s market share numbers, Google ends up with somewhere between 35 and 45 percent of the market. So, if three out of four people prefer Google, why don’t they own a proportionate share of searches?

The reason is that we’re basically lazy. If we’re on MSN and a search box is handy, we won’t bother going to Google. This is one reason why the battle of the search toolbar heated up so quickly. It also points out the precariousness of Google’s position. Yes, we love Google, but ask us to spend another three to four seconds to type in the URL and we’ll head off with the first search opportunity that catches our eye. Online, brand love is a very fickle thing.

It’s Time to Raise the Bar, Again What we really want is a better way to search. Something that gets us just the destination and information we want, quickly, seamlessly, and, while you’re at it, it wouldn’t hurt to wow us with some new innovation as well. I think we’re on the threshold of another breakthrough. It’s time for a giant leap forward in search. There are a number of startups that are knocking on the door, but we’re waiting for a search site with enough market traction to really up the ante with search.

The blizzard of incremental improvements we’ve seen coming out of the major players is nice, but the market advantage they give only lasts for a week or two and then the competition evens the playing field again. Somebody has to stake the high ground and keep it for more than a few days.

The Secret? Search at the OS Level I believe the functionality to make this quantum leap forward in search has to rest at the operating system level. Search needs to be more fully integrated into our daily online activities. It needs to achieve the transparency that can only happen when search works in the background, totally integrated with programs and the basic functionality of our computer.

This is where MSN Search can deliver the knockout punch to Google. And I believe Google knows this. I’m guessing a fair number of the hundreds of Google PhD’s are wrapping their collective intellect around this blockbuster challenge. Google has to gain a foothold on the desktop to effectively fight off Microsoft’s attack. And this means surrendering privacy. Privacy is something we are protecting more and more diligently. We won’t give it up easily.

But Microsoft has already integrated themselves at the root level on our desktop. They don’t just own the high ground, they own the whole landscape. And when they can deliver a search experience that’s truly better than the competition, they’ll have already won. It won’t take another Super Bowl ad.

Microsoft, you had us at hello.

Online is Not the Place for the Road Less Travelled

First published Feb 17, 2005 in Mediapost’s Search Insider

We are all creatures of habit. We travel in well-worn grooves, interacting with the familiar and generally eschewing the unfamiliar. Of course, not all people are alike, but generally speaking, we as a species don’t like breaking new ground. Occasionally we will nudge ourselves out of our rut to try something new, but pretty big win had better be in store for us.

In the early days of the Internet, everything was new. Every visit online was forging new horizons. We made new discoveries daily. We had no choice. If we chose to go online, we were forced to venture into the unfamiliar. While this is still true to a certain extent, those days are rapidly disappearing.

We are civilizing and settling the online world. We’re staking out the familiar territory. We’re finding and bookmarking our favorite destinations. And suddenly, there is a value assessed to well-traveled online properties. Brand loyalty builds.

Search as our navigator This is nothing revelatory or earthshaking, but it does have some direct implications for search marketing. There is a sweet spot for search, and it has to do with the size, scope, and nature of our identified and familiar online world. Whenever we have to venture into the terra incognito that lies beyond those boundaries, we turn to a search engine.

And, because we are creatures of habit, we turn to our favorite search engine. We trust that engine to quickly identify new sites that we feel comfortable exploring. Search acts as a navigator and guide. And generally, we only go to search when a familiar destination doesn’t immediately spring to mind.

So, in a consumer interaction, there are distinct phases where we are likely to turn to a general search engine like Yahoo! or Google. If we are booking a trip, most of us will go directly to Expedia or Travelocity. That’s familiar ground to us and we know that it will deliver what we’re looking for: a quick way to compare a number of different airfares, hotels, or other options.

We don’t go to Google each time and search for the lowest airfare to our destination or a hotel. We don’t need a navigator, because we already know the way. There are sites we know of that are better able to find the information we’re looking for, because they were built for that specific type of search.

Stepping into the unknown But let’s say we want to do consumer research in an area where we don’t have a reference and comparison site such as Expedia. For example, let’s say we’re looking for a new mountain bike. We may be familiar with a brand or two, but we’re looking to broaden our options for consideration. So, we turn to a general search engine to help quickly identify new landmarks to help navigate this unfamiliar territory.

As soon as we can, we try to find vertical reference sites in the market we’re researching, because we know they’re built to provide richer content and more searching functionality for that particular product than a general, one-size-fits-all search engine. We use the navigator to find the reference landmark.

Why so many consumers use generic keyphrases Often there is back and forth between the two. In the case of the mountain bike, perhaps the vertical reference site allows us to find new models, which we then turn to our favorite search engine to find more information on. This may or may not happen and it’s one reason why the comScore study released in December found that many consumer searches on general search engines never progressed beyond generic key phrases.

Another example we saw of this behavior became apparent in a focus group we conducted early in 2004. In it, we gave 24 participants a budget to spend and asked them to start researching their purchases online. About half the group wanted to purchase a consumer electronic (CE) item and either the first or second place they went was the site of a very well known CE retailer. They did the majority of their research there and only occasionally turned to a search engine to broaden the options or look for new online destinations.

Exploring our target consumer’s online market landscape As search marketers, we need to spend more time understanding the territory that our target consumers travel through. If we’re trying to intercept them, we need to know their online destinations, both familiar and unfamiliar.

We must know when they’re likely to turn to a search engine and when they might go directly to a site they’re already familiar with. The fastest way to find the intercept point is to examine the traffic patterns and then decide where you can stake a presence in a prime intersection. But all too often, we try to stake our claim to online territory, never knowing if our customer might even come that way.