The AdGooroo Blog
May 21, 2013Paid Search and Travel 2013
Posted by Jim on May 21, 2013 to
From Gregg Hamilton, SVP of Research & Analytics and Business Development at AdGooroo. Read his continuing original research on search engine marketing here at the AdGooroo blog and follow him at @AdGoorooG.
With Memorial Day and the traditional start of the summer travel season just a few days away, it’s a great time to look at the Travel industry and Paid Search. Specifically, how are things faring and what might we expect to happen this summer?
Travel's Down -- What's Up?
Paid search spend in the Travel category on U.S. AdWords is down in 2013. At $238 million for the months of January through April, it's actually down 19% from 2012’s $295 million during the same period, which was down 17% from 2011.
Clearly, there’s a downward trend starting in 2011. And the trend holds throughout the summer months as well, with spend from May through August 2012 down 15% from the same period 2011. If the trend continues, then we estimate the spend this summer will total only $242 million, more than $100 million less than two years ago.
Have travel marketers en masse decided to pull back on their paid search spend? Not according to our data. For instance, we found 217 advertisers in the travel category on U.S. AdWords in Q1 2012 and 228 in Q1 2013.
Another possible explanation could be the so-called "stickiness" of travel sites, which may be better retaining users that have had a previous good experience.
However, a more plausible explanation is that Google has been cannibalizing its advertisers’ clickthroughs and spend with their own travel marketing efforts. After all, the decline in PPC spend began in 2011, a year in which Google Flight Search and Google Hotel Finder launched (in September and August, respectively). It would not be a stretch to conclude that the presence of these new Google features in the first SERP results--the travel equivalent of their Product Listing Ads in that they display a provider AND a price--may be poaching large amounts of clickthrough traffic (and thus PPC spend) from the paid ads on the page.
Top Travel PPC Advertisers of 2012
With the vast majority of travel bookings now taking place online, Travel is a highly competitive category for paid search. Based on PPC-generated impressions, the Top 10 paid search advertisers on U.S. AdWords in the Travel category in 2012 were:
1. kayak.com – 883 million impressions
2. priceline.com – 699 million impressions
3. orbitz.com – 670 million impressions
4. tripadvisor.com – 663 million impressions
5. cheapoair.com – 629 million impressions
6. expedia.com – 595 million impressions
7. booking.com – 538 million impressions
8. travelzoo.com – 469 million impressions
9. bookingbuddy.com – 353 million impressions
10. hotels.com – 349 million impressions
Interestingly, the category is led by kayak.com, a company that just a few short years ago seemed to occupy the status of ‘best kept secret’ among those in the know on travel deals. Also of note, the better known brands (Priceline, Orbitz, Expedia) are competing not just with each other but with lesser known sites such as cheapoair.com and bookingbuddy.com. Perhaps in a few years these brands will occupy a similar position to kayak.com today?
Enterprise Boldly Goes Where No Travel Keyword Has Gone (This Year)
The following chart shows the Top 25 Travel keyword terms in 2013 based on January to March clickthroughs and their change in click-through rank from the same period last year:
In a surprise, it appears that this summer’s new Star Trek film is not the only place to find a popular ‘Enterprise’. The car rental giant’s branded keyword term leads the entire Travel category in 2013 clickthroughs, moving up from the number 4 position in 2012. What’s more, our research showed that the Enterprise keyword enjoys a remarkable 12.1% clickthrough rate. The leader on this metric was Expedia, with a 29.5% CTR, meaning that almost one third of the time that a paid ad for Expedia appeared on a Google SERP, that ad was clicked on.
Overall, navigational/branded keywords (search terms for a specific site, which signal the desired site destination as opposed to a search for information) tended to perform well in 2013. Other navigational keyword search terms that excelled in 2013 include: “Travelocity”, up 7 positions; “US Airways”, up 15 positions, “Trip Advisor”, up 8 positions as well as“Hotels.com” and “Best Western”. A notable exception were the keywords “Southwest” and “Southwest Airlines”, which both slipped in the ranking.
Among non-navigational keywords, big gainers include “rental cars” (up 20 positions) and “cheap hotels” (up 17 positions) while those losing ground included “Disney”, down 12 positions (though “Disney World” climbed slightly).
Noteworthy Observations on the Top 100
The following insights were derived from examining the Top 100 Most Clicked Keywords:
• The growing popularity of the keyword “vrbo” (vacation rental by owner), which rose to position 51 in 2013 from 78 in 2012, may indicate a new trend in consumer travel habits and a threat to the hotel business
• Average clickthrough rate was 8.1%, with navigational terms posting much higher rates and generic terms yielding much lower clickthroughs (“flight” was lowest at 1.4%)
• Queries on “Airlines” yielded the most paid ads: 10.6 per SERP, while searches on “Greyhound” yielded less than 1, on average
• “Hyatt” got the highest ad coverage (appearing 95.2% of the time) while “United Airlines” got the lowest (37.7%)
• “Vacation packages” was the term with the most bidders, with 259 advertisers gaining first SERP impressions during the first quarter of the year. “Greyhound” had the fewest bidders (4).
Consumer Searches
Returning to a subject we covered last year the word cloud below depicts consumer search activity on US AdWords during the months of January to March 2013, when many individuals are starting their travel planning for the summer. The size of a keyword is in proportion to the number of paid search ad impressions (Top 25 keyword terms based on resulting ad impressions) which were served on Google’s first SERPs during that period.
Evidently, travel searches are equally dominated by informational searches (particularly by people seeking low cost lodging and transportation options) and navigational searches (people using Google to get to a specific carrier or operator’s website). Searches on generic terms trigger ads from multiple competitors, which explains the relative size of “hotels”, “flights”, “cruises” and “cheap tickets” and “cheap flights”, each of which provoked tens of millions of ads (literally) during that period. The navigational searches on branded terms like “Disney”, “Travelocity”, “Enterprise”, “Southwest” and “Royal Caribbean” trigger many fewer ad impressions since Google discourages bidding on competing brands, and so the number of ads per SERP is much lower than for generic terms.
It’s Mother’s Day…Bring on the Flowers & Gift Baskets!
Posted by Jim on May 6, 2013 to
From Gregg Hamilton, SVP of Research & Analytics and Business Development at AdGooroo. Read his continuing original research on search engine marketing here at the AdGooroo blog and follow him at @AdGoorooG.
According to the National Retail Federation, consumers plan to spend $2.3 billion on flowers for Mother’s Day this year, making Mother’s Day the top holiday for flower purchases—even over Valentine’s Day at $1.9 billion.
What’s more, the NRF reports that nearly 3 in 10 Mother’s Day gift buyers will be heading to the Internet to make their purchase.
So how are paid search marketers in the Flowers & Mail Order Gifts category responding? If recent trends hold up, then 2013 will be the biggest year on record for paid search spending related to Mother’s Day. Advertisers in the Flowers & Gifts category spent $5.6 million on paid search in May 2010, $8 million in May 2011 and $9.4 million in May 2012, according to AdGooroo’s proprietary data collection and modeling. If this growth pattern continues, then paid search by advertisers in the Flowers & Mail Order Gifts category will exceed $11 million this month.
A Robust & Innovative Category
Flowers & Mail Order Gifts is a robust sector for paid search. According to AdGooroo data, the Flowers & Gifts category ranked ninth among Shopping and Retail categories in terms of paid search spend, accounting for more than $75 million of paid clickthroughs on U.S. AdWords and more than $8 million on the Yahoo! Bing Network during 2012. AdGooroo found more than 450 advertisers active in this vertical on AdWords and more than 250 active on Yahoo! Bing during the year.
Interestingly, the retail florist trade is responsible for some important marketing innovations that are now pervasive and almost taken for granted by retailers of all kinds. For instance, 1-800 Flowers was one of the first U.S. retailers to use a 24/7 toll-free number for accepting orders, while FTD (Florist’s Transworld Delivery, founded in 1910 as Florist’s Telegraph Delivery) was the first organization to form a national network of local operators across the country to enable same-day delivery. One hundred years later, Amazon Locker is replicating this innovation by installing self-service locker kiosks in convenience stores (currently in Seattle, New York and London).
The Top 10 Paid Search Advertisers
Competition for first SERP ad impressions and clickthroughs in the Flowers & Mail Order Gifts category is fierce as old stalwarts bid against newcomers for top page position and the resulting clickthroughs and orders. Based on PPC-generated impressions, the Top 10 paid search advertisers on U.S. AdWords in the Flowers & Mail Order Gifts category in 2012 were:
1. Pro Flowers – 134 million impressions
2.1-800 Flowers – 125 million impressions
3. FTD – 96 million impressions
4. Gifts.com – 90 million impressions
5. BloomsToday.com – 85 million impressions
6. Teleflora – 83 million impressions
7. FromYouFlowers.com – 73 million impressions
8. FloristExpress.net – 56 million impressions
9. UncommonGoods.com – 55 million impressions
10. JustFlowers.com – 51 million impressions
Top Keywords
This word cloud depicts the most common search queries, sized in proportion to the number of paid search ad impressions served by US AdWords last year:
There were some shifts in the popularity of search queries, and thus of ads served from 2011 to 2012. Here are the Top 25 keyword terms in 2012 and their change in rank from 2011:
Among the big gainers were “mothers day gifts”, “fruit baskets” and “flowers for mothers day”. Notably, “edible arrangements” moved into the Top 10, showing the growing popularity of the Edible Arrangements retailer and suggesting that gift givers may be starting to explore options other than the predictable flower bouquet. If this trend continues in 2013, this would be very good news for all merchants whose gift catalog extends beyond flowers such as Harry & David and UncommonGoods.com.
The Paid Search Retail Universe
Posted by Jim on April 24, 2013 to
Ever wonder how much retailers spend on paid search? Look to the stars! Or rather, check out AdGooroo's new infographic to see the top 10 spending retail categories in 2012 as well as the top players in each category based on impressions:
Want to see the Top 50 paid search advertisers in 15 retail categories? Get the full report here
Is Your PPC Competitive Benchmarking Working?
Posted by Jim on March 14, 2013 to
AdGooroo's Gregg Hamilton tackles this question in his latest article in Search Engine Watch and shares an instructive real-life example comparing Pottery Barn's and Bed Bath & Beyond's paid search campaigns. Check it out here:
Why Competitive Benchmarking is Integral to Paid Search Success
A new beginning
Posted by Richard Stokes on December 21, 2012 to acquisition, Kantar
Eight years ago, AdGooroo was born – almost accidentally – as a means to help drive more traffic to my sites by analyzing competitors’ paid search campaigns. To say this technology was humble is an understatement; the first AdGooroo server ran for several months from my entertainment center. And although the power of this approach was not obvious to most, word spread slowly among a small group of smart and nimble early adopters who saw similar success with their own campaigns. I fondly remember the day that one of our first users (a freelance copywriter) had to turn off his advertising because he couldn’t handle the flood of phone calls resulting from his new and improved paid search campaign.
Word of mouth is a powerful thing. Which is good, because we couldn’t afford a marketing budget. We relied almost entirely on our customers to let others know about us. After years of hard work, innovation, many failures and a few successes, AdGooroo has emerged as the gold standard in paid search intelligence. Today, more than 4,000 users in 50 countries rely on our products to win at PPC, search engine optimization, and display advertising. And perhaps just as importantly, we now run our servers from data centers instead of entertainment centers.
We are proud of how far we’ve come, but to us, this is not so much a success as it is the start of something big.
I’m pleased to announce the next chapter in the AdGooroo story. As of December 20, 2012, AdGooroo is part of Kantar Media, the global leader of competitive media information. We are very excited to join this great company. Together, we will be able to bring a more holistic approach to the measurement of digital media. And although we will continue to operate as an independent entity under the AdGooroo name, this partnership gives us access to more resources, international offices, and richer sources of data so that we can better serve our clients.
Let me assure you that these changes will in no way impact or disrupt our service, contracts or commitments. You will continue to work with the same people and we will continue to offer the same products and level of service you have always received.
I want to personally thank you for your continued support as we move into this exciting new phase.
Here is to your continued success!
Richard Stokes
CEO
AdGooroo
One day to go - Let's look at political ads (while we can)
Posted by Richard Stokes on November 5, 2012 to Barack Obama, election, Mitt Romney
I'm sure voters in at least 10 states have had their fill of political ads by now. For the rest of us however, there's only one day to go before most of the ads go away. So let's take a look at the online political advertising landscape while we can.
Surprisingly, I would have expected political paid search advertising to peak in October. However, we are seeing a similar phenomenon as in retail where the peak spend is achieved a little early. The chart below shows that for at least in paid search, spend actually peaked last December and has been steadily dropping since (with a big drop in September). This is most likely due to a drop off in bidding since the primaries. Overall though, the numbers aren't particularly large so we can safely assume that the campaigns are reaching voters primarily through other channels.
Barack Obama has consistently spent more online than Mitt Romney. Perhaps this is to be expected giving the different demographics of the two parties' supporters. What is interesting is that the Obama campaign stepped up their online advertising back in August of 2011,
In comparison to 2008, we are finding that both campaigns spent the majority of their online spend on branded terms. The Obama campaign's top non-branded keywords were focused on social issues such as "Obamacare", "Iraq war", and "pro choice".
In contrast, The Romney campaign targeted keywords related to the economy, such as "romney economy", "obama tax plan", and "small business ideas". (We also noted the inadvertent targeting of Mitt Romney ads to the phrase "www.ppsc.gop.pk", which is the site for the Punjab Public Service Commission. Gotta stay on top of those negative matches, Mitt!).
In terms of keyword selection (2606 keywords for Obama vs. 96 keywords for Romney) as well as impression share, we have to conclude that the Obama team ran a much better paid search campaign than Romney.
Display Advertising
We saw different strategies being used in display advertising. This is an important difference because as display is a push medium (as opposed to paid search, where ads are served based on well-defined searches), display ads may better reflect what the campaigns perceive as important issues. And where paid search ads tended to be more positive and matter of fact, display ads (particularly Obama's) were negative and contentious.
For instance, Romney's display ads focus on cutting federal spending and regulation, strong defense, repealing Obamacare, and cutting the Federal budget. In addition, many ads were soliciting small donations from voters:
In contrast, Obama display ads were decidedly more negative. Among the more prominent ones were messages such as "Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan want to take away a woman's right to choose", "Romney's tax plan: Families with kids pay $2,000 more. Multi-Millionaires like Romney get a $250,000 tax cut", and "Obama: Doubled Pell grant funding. Romney: Student aid at risk for millions".
Interestingly, we found primarily text ads used within the Romney display advertising campaigns, while Obama used a healthy mix of Flash, banner, and text ads. From an advertising perspective, point to Obama.
As in paid search, the Obama team appeared to run a more effective display campaign. On the 7500+ websites we monitor, Obama garnered 48M pageviews in October to Romney's 23M.
Interested in gathering your own statistics? Check out AdGooroo's Industry Insight service.
Join our Webinar: Paid Search - Lessons from Holiday 2011
Posted by Jim on September 21, 2012 to
Looking to maximize retail traffic and sales this Holiday Season? Please join AdGooroo on Thursday October 4 at 2 p.m. EST for an informative webinar that helps you apply the lessons of Holiday 2011 to improve your PPC campaigns this year.
Learn the top actions you need to take now to maximize your PPC campaigns for the Holiday season, including:
• Why CTR is critical to your campaign and what steps you need to improve it
• Why November is the make or break month of the quarter
• Must-know trends in branded vs. unbranded keywords and what they mean for your campaign
• How to take advantage of declines in CPCs during the quarter
• How much PPC budget you should reserve for the holidays
• Which keyword categories are hot and cool during the quarter
• And more!
Space is limited. Please reserve your webinar seat now
What's Barack Saying?
Posted by Richard Stokes on September 12, 2012 to Barack Obama, Display Advertising, Presidential Election 2012
Find out below in this screenshot of last month's display advertising campaign from barackobama.com.
Interested in learning about other websites? Check out our Display Insight service.
Yes, You Can Compete Against Amazon in Paid Search. And Even Win.
Posted by Jim on August 10, 2012 to
Just ask Target, Toys“R”Us, Victoria’s Secret & More
One of the most common questions we hear from AdGooroo clients engaged in paid search is ‘How are we doing compared to Amazon?’ followed by ‘Is there anything we can do to pull ahead?’ Not surprising, considering Amazon’s preeminence in the e-tail world and its reputation as a juggernaut in PPC.
As such, we decided to take a closer look at the online retail giant compared to its paid search competitors in a new research report, and the results were surprising.
Yes, Amazon’s brilliant business model, its massive spend on Google AdWords (nearly twice the amount as the next largest spending retailer—Target) and estimated portfolio of millions of keywords across all categories of merchandise make it a force to be reckoned with in the PPC arena. However, AdGooroo’s research into three categories outside of the e-tailer’s traditional strong suit (books, music and other media) found that Amazon is not always the dominant player in paid search.
Here’s a quick synopsis of the report’s findings:
Children’s Products
Despite sponsoring 12.7 percent of the highest PPC spend keywords in Children’s Products, Amazon was outperformed by advertisers with strong brand recognition, who garnered more desirable ad positioning (American Girl, Lego, Hasbro, Toys“R”Us and Children’s Place) and a much larger share of impressions on their chosen category keywords (Children’s Place – 81 percent; American Girl – 69 percent; Lego – 68 percent; Toys“R”Us – 50 percent). Even Target, whose offering and SEM strategy resemble Amazon’s more than the children-centric brands studied, garnered 52 percent of impressions on their category keywords compared to Amazon’s 31 percent.
Fashion and Apparel
Although Amazon again leads in the percentage of top PPC spend keywords sponsored (13.9 percent), its competitors in the category earned more favorable results. The top five SEM advertisers in the category based on ad position, Express, Victoria’s Secret, Bloomingdales, 6pm.com and Loft.com, together earned an average of more than 1,600 impressions per keyword per day on the terms that they sponsored compared to Amazon’s 349 impressions. Further, Amazon had the lowest ad coverage, the second lowest clickthrough rate, and the third highest cost-per-click. Although it trailed the pack in terms of average ad position, Target recorded higher clickthrough rates and a larger share of impressions than Amazon on the category keywords that it sponsored.
Auto Parts
Although not traditionally thought of as a provider of automobile parts and accessories, Amazon’s broad set of Auto Parts keywords, second only to AutoZone, demonstrated a concerted effort to compete in the category. However, its paid search performance compared unfavorably to its competitors, generating the highest CPC, the lowest average position and only a 13 percent share of impressions on the keywords that it chose to sponsor. AutoZone, O’Reilly Auto Parts and even Target appeared to be competing less with Amazon than with each other.
For complete details, as well as insights into strategies and tactics of the most successful PPC campaigns, download the full report here:
Beating Amazon in Paid Search – An AdGooroo Special Report
AdGooroo Helps Media Contacts Measure the Lithuanian Market
Posted by Jim on July 9, 2012 to
In November 2011 AdGooroo and Media Contacts Lithuania began a strategic partnership, which enables the agency to measure total online advertising investments in the Lithuanian market and more effectively invest advertising budgets. The agency recently commented on the relationship in a press release: “As an integral part of the advertising industry, we felt an obligation to participate in market advances and actively seek technology solutions [such as AdGooroo] that allow automated monitoring of our investment and the prevailing market strategies,” said Donatas Tamelis, Managing Director of Media Contacts Lithuania.
“AdGooroo has enjoyed a longtime, strategic partnership with the Havas family of agency brands and we are particularly pleased to help Media Contacts educate its clients, prospects and the industry at large on the search marketing landscape in the Lithuanian market,” commented Richard Stokes, founder and CEO of AdGooroo. “As a global provider of digital marketing intelligence, we believe bringing data and insights to marketers in emerging markets is of central importance to our mission.”
AdGooroo Webinars
Posted by Kurt on June 4, 2012 to
Summer is a perfect time to brush up on your AdGooroo skills by taking a webinar! We currently offer webinars for new SEM Insight users - and we've recently added sessions that are more convenient for our European clients.
Each interactive webinar last about 45 minutes- and we have beginner and advanced sessions. Check out the schedule and register for a session today!
America is heading to Disney…or Vegas ?
Posted by Gregg Hamilton on May 22, 2012 to Disney, Las Vegas, Research Insights, Travel
January and February have traditionally been strong months for catalog shopping, and now e-commerce, but they are also a time when thoughts turn to spring break and summer vacations as antidote to the mid-winter blues. According to AdGooroo’s research, 943 travel keywords (KWs) were ‘Googled’ in the US over 10,000 times per day during the months of January and February 2012. In fact, these leading travel terms yielded an estimated 2.4 billion searches (!) during the period, or more than 7.5 searches for every man, woman and child in the US (not counting searches on Bing, AOL or Ask).
This search activity reveals much about where and how America hopes to unwind in the months ahead. For instance, the two most popular searched locations occupy polar opposite positions in the American psyche: Disney and Las Vegas. Fully 6.0% of the searched terms corresponded to a Las Vegas attraction or hotel, versus Disney properties at 5.2%. But Disney led in terms of total searches (7.3% vs. 6.3%) and paid search click-throughs (7.3% vs. 4.3%). Las Vegas searchers had a distinctly lower CTR (3.2% vs. 4.8%) perhaps reflecting a lower need to conduct detailed research and the likelihood that the organic ads contained sufficient information, i.e. the phone # of the hotel or box office, to satisfy the searcher.
Almost a third of the KW terms searched during the first two months of the year specified attractions or destinations in the Lower 48 states, while 14.6% pertained to ‘overseas’ locations (including Alaska, Hawaii, Mexico and the Caribbean). The Lower 48 states enjoyed 2.45 times as many search impressions as the overseas locations, but only 2.04 times as many paid search visits due to a lower average CTR (3.4% vs. 4.1%). Presumably, the more exotic and less well-known locations required more online investigative research.
Caribbean locations, including Puerto Rico, registered more searches and paid click-throughs (3.5% and 3.3% of the top KW total, respectively) than any other overseas locations, while Nevada and Florida dominated the domestic searches and paid click-throughs.
Transportation—planes, trains & automobile (rentals)—was the most-searched and clicked Travel topic, ahead of Lodging and named Destinations. Cruises ranked in fourth place, ahead of specific Attractions, travel Packages, Booking sites, Passport issues and named Events, e.g. Mardi Gras. The highest click-through rate (9.8%) belonged to travel Packages, perhaps driven by comparison shopping and return site visits. The lowest click-through rate (2.7%) belonged to Booking sites (Orbitz, Expedia, Travelocity), probably because these services enable comparison shopping within site and, once registered, visitors would be likely to bookmark such sites to simplify their return visits.
Finally, the lingering impact of the recession was clearly evident, as 10.0% of the terms searched and 13.3% of the actual searches implied deal-seeking, containing words like coupon, discount, cheap, low price and deal. The Transportation searches were the most likely to include deal-seeking language (31.7%), while the Package searches were next (27.9%) at 2.4 times and 2.1 times average, respectively.
Link to press release announcing results of this study.
Gregg Hamilton is Senior Vice President of Research & Analytics and Business Development at AdGooroo. Read his continuing original research on search engine marketing here at the AdGooroo blog and follow him at @AdGoorooG.
Comparing PPC Metrics of Retail, Product Brand & Non-Branded Keywords in the Sporting Goods Category
Posted by Gregg Hamilton on April 20, 2012 to PPC Metrics, Research Insights, Retail, Sporting Goods
With Spring springing outside, and my daydreams increasingly occupied by thoughts of outdoor fun and games, I recently completed an analysis of pay-per-click activity in the Sporting Goods shopping category (US only).
During the course of that analysis, I reviewed the Top 100 category keywords (in terms of estimated volume of AdWords queries in Q4 2011) and designated each of those keywords as Retail Brand, Product Brand or Non-Branded. Whether one or multiple words, if the keyword contained a recognizable brand name, I designated it as “Branded”. (The only exception to this was “Nordic track” which I judged to have become a generic term describing a specific type of exercise equipment.)
Fully 62% of the most queried Sporting Goods terms in Q4 were Branded, with 13 of the Top 100 keywords belonging to Retail Brands, both online and offline, and 49 to Branded Products. The Retail Brands received a disproportionate share of searches, 28% versus 43% for the Branded Products. The 38 Non-Branded keywords in the Top 100 received only 29% of search volume during the quarter.
• North Face and two spelling variants were actually the top three Branded Sporting Goods keywords and the top three most search keywords overall in the category. The next four Branded terms included Columbia, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Adidas and Academy (an e-tailer)
• The top five Non-Branded keywords were golf, elliptical, treadmill, soccer and golf clubs
So, branding is alive and well in this category with high awareness and high interest.
Digging deeper into the performance metrics of the different categories of terms, we found that the 13 Retail Brand terms had the highest average click-through rate (10.1%) and the lowest average CPC ($0.71) within the Top 100 keywords. This relatively high CTR indicates that consumers are searching on Retail Brand names with the intention of visiting the Retailer’s site (and are using the Google search box rather than their browser address bar). However, almost 90% of those searchers are either not clicking through, or are visiting a different site, perhaps a competing Retailer.
Meanwhile, the 49 Product Brand keywords in the Top 100 had a lower average click-through rate (2.77%) and a higher average CPC ($1.00) than the 38 Non-Branded keywords (at 3.42% and $0.90, respectively). Note, these are all weighted averages based on the number of search impressions in the period.
The lower average CTR of Product Brand compared to Non-Branded terms suggests that the Brand name searchers may be less committed to their searches than those searching more generally. But the higher average CPC suggests that advertisers attach more value to Branded search visitors than to Non-Branded search visitors. I suspect that:
• Searchers on Non-Branded Sporting Goods terms are higher (earlier) in the purchase funnel and are more likely to be exploring and seeking information about the sport or activity. Meanwhile, Branded term searchers are likely to be lower (later) in the purchase funnel, having picked a Brand to explore, and may only click through if they see new information (offers, styles, sources) displayed.
• When the Branded term searchers click through, they are probably more likely to purchase than Non-Branded term searchers. This would explain the higher expected value, and thus the higher CPC, for the Branded term visitors.
• I suspect that the specific “location intent” and/or store loyalty of searchers on Retail Brands makes them less valuable, on average, to competing SEMs than the average Product searcher, whether Branded or Non-Branded.
I recently published a white paper about Paid Search in the Sporting Goods retail category (available for download here) and in it I’ve fleshed out in more detail my thoughts about the expected value of searchers on different types of terms.
I will be exploring this topic further as I study PPC performance in other Shopping categories, but I would be very interested in your thoughts about this differential valuation. Better still, can anyone share any results or comment upon the relative conversion rate and/or average purchase value of Non-Branded versus Branded search term visitors?
Gregg Hamilton is Senior Vice President of Research & Analytics and Business Development at AdGooroo. Read his continuing original research on search engine marketing here at the AdGooroo blog and follow him at @AdGoorooG.
Exciting New Product: Get Instant Access to AdGooroo’s Full Search Intelligence Database!
Posted by Jim on February 21, 2012 to
AdGooroo is excited to announce the launch of Industry Insight, our powerful new search marketing dashboard that gives advertisers and agencies instant access to AdGooroo’s full search intelligence database, including years of proprietary pay-per-click (PPC) data on virtually EVERY industry and advertiser.
That means you’ll find specific keywords, estimated share of voice/impression share, estimated PPC spend, clickthrough rates, CPCs and more for each advertiser in more than 160 industry categories.
Using this info, you can:
• Mine competitors' keyword lists to uncover new traffic opportunities
• Quickly access the competitive landscape and larger trends that may impact budgeting and performance in any vertical
• Gain immediate insight into any advertiser, including those too small to show up in panel-based datasets
• Compare any two advertisers across any time period by spend, clicks, CTR, CPC, ranking and more
• View historical/seasonal trends
• And more
You can also combine Industry Insight with AdGooroo's SEM Insight to see daily changes to your competitors' campaigns, including specific ad copy and landing pages!
Want to see Industry Insight for yourself? Go to the Industry Insight page and register for a custom demo: click here.
New Ad Formats and Extensions
Posted by Mike Schiro on February 15, 2012 to AdWords, Features
We are excited to announce the addition of some brand new Google AdWords data coming soon to our products here at AdGooroo.com. In the past few weeks we have begun collecting some of the latest Google AdWords ad formats and extensions that we know many of our users will find useful.
Social Extensions
Communication Extensions
Media Ads
We've begun collecting data points on all of these types in addition to the many we already cover. As always, you can find an updated list of format types we have found out in the wild on our Ad Archive page.
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