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.

CHICAGO, April 19, 2012 – Digital marketing intelligence provider AdGooroo (www.adgooroo.com) announced that Internet marketing agency Rise Interactive (www.riseinteractive.com) has selected the company’s Industry Insight tool to help it more effectively generate new business pitches and better manage clients’ paid search campaigns. Industry Insight is a versatile search marketing dashboard that provides advertisers and agencies with instant access to the world’s largest search intelligence database, including years of proprietary pay-per-click (PPC) data on virtually every industry and advertiser.

Through Industry Insight, Rise Interactive can utilize a wealth of paid search data, including specific keywords, estimated share of voice or impression share, estimated PPC spend, clickthrough rates (CTR), cost per click (CPC) and more, for each of its prospects and clients, as well as for those companies’ competitors and industries at large. Among its many uses, Industry Insight provides advertisers and agencies with the ability to:

• Mine competitors' keyword lists to uncover new traffic opportunities
• Quickly assess 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

“As a long-time user of AdGooroo’s marketing intelligence data, we know the power their data brings to bear in helping our business development team win new business and our account services team drive stellar results for clients’ search programs,” said Jon Morris, CEO of Rise Interactive. “The abundance of vertical and advertiser data now offered by Industry Insight, as well as its ease of access, will greatly enhance our effectiveness and speed on both fronts.”

“AdGooroo is proud to work with the industry’s most respected advertisers and agencies and especially excited to build upon our relationship with Rise Interactive,” commented Richard Stokes, founder and CEO of AdGooroo. “We designed Industry Insight specifically to help users such as Rise enrich their understanding of the paid search marketplace and more effectively achieve their specific goals.”

About AdGooroo
Founded in 2004, AdGooroo is a leading provider of Digital Marketing Intelligence that drives competitive advantage for Internet marketers. More than 4,000 advertisers and agencies use AdGooroo’s on-demand tools to tap into the world’s largest database of search and display marketing data and gain actionable intelligence on their top competitors’ keywords, ad creative, backlink data, campaign statistics, budgets and more. For more information, visit AdGooroo.com.

About Rise Interactive
Rise Interactive, founded in 2004, arose from the traditional interactive marketing space. Its focus evolved to cover the nine key channels of digital marketing, grounded in web analytics and optimization. These channels include Paid Search, SEO, Link Building, Display, Comparison Shopping Engines, Mobile, Affiliate and Social Media. Over time, Rise has transformed into the pioneer of Interactive Investment Management with an unrelenting focus on ROI and better access to analytics. Rise takes a holistic approach that is both channel and technology agnostic. Through its research and proprietary technology it has become the trusted advisor in managing the interactive portfolio for some of the world’s best known brands including Allstate Motor Club, Claire’s, ConAgra, DeVry, Lexmark, NorthShore HealthSystems, TOMY and Ulta Cosmetics.

CHICAGO, April 10, 2012 – Digital marketing intelligence provider AdGooroo (www.adgooroo.com) today announced the appointment of Gregg Hamilton to senior vice president, research & analytics and business development. Hamilton is responsible for AdGooroo’s strategic research and analytic initiatives, with the goal of enhancing the insights that customers derive from AdGooroo’s data. In addition, he is responsible for building key strategic partnerships that deliver long-term value for both AdGooroo and its partners.

Hamilton comes to AdGooroo with 25 years of experience in WPP’s Young & Rubicam family of agencies, where he specialized in improving client performance through the targeting and segmentation of database marketing communications and programs, in-market testing and determining which marketing investments worked and how well. Among his achievements, Hamilton directed the global database marketing strategy for the launch of Microsoft’s adCenter search engine (now Bing).

“I have spent most of my career applying scientific method to improve the impact and efficiency of direct marketing practice,” said Hamilton. “I am excited to join AdGooroo because I believe that there are huge opportunities to improve the science of online marketing and because AdGooroo has built the infrastructure to compile and synthesize the richest data in that space independent of any search engine, publisher or other online property.”

“We are very pleased that Gregg has chosen to join the AdGooroo team,” commented Richard Stokes, founder and CEO of AdGooroo. “AdGooroo is committed to delivering the highest possible accuracy and value in our proprietary data. Gregg’s wealth of insight and experience in using data to improve marketing effectiveness will materially contribute to the value that AdGooroo’s proprietary marketing intelligence brings to our users.”

About AdGooroo

Founded in 2004, AdGooroo is a leading provider of Digital Marketing Intelligence that drives competitive advantage for Internet marketers. More than 4,000 advertisers and agencies use AdGooroo’s on-demand tools to tap into the world’s largest database of search and display marketing data and gain actionable intelligence on their top competitors’ keywords, ad creative, backlink data, campaign statistics, budgets and more. For more information, visit AdGooroo.com.

SEM Insight Webinars

Tue, May 15, 2012 2:00 PM - 2:45 PM CDT
Tue, May 22, 2012 2:00 PM - 2:45 PM CDT
Tue, Jun 5, 2012 2:00 PM - 2:45 PM CDT

Wed, May 23, 2012 2:00 PM - 2:45 PM CDT
Wed, Jun 6, 2012 2:00 PM - 2:45 PM CDT
Wed, Jun 20, 2012 2:00 PM - 2:45 PM CDT

Link Insight Webinars

Thu, May 17, 2012 2:00 PM - 2:45 PM CDT
Thu, May 31, 2012 2:00 PM - 2:45 PM CDT
Thu, Jun 14, 2012 2:00 PM - 2:45 PM CDT

Classification can be challenging as some advertisers could potentially fall into several different categories. The following is intended to give guidance on each vertical.

Adult

Adult websites consist of gambling and pornography (listed under "uncategorized"). A sports betting site would be listed under Adult:Gambling rather than Lifestyle:Sports.

Automotive

This vertical relates to all sites which are primarily focused on the sale of automobiles, parts, review sites, recreational vehicles, and other heavy equipment.

Notes:

• "Car Rental" is located under the "Travel" vertical.

Business

With few exceptions, websites selling business services (B2B) are placed in this category. Categories include Advertising, career sites, commercial real estate, IT Solutions, Payroll processing solutions, teleconferencing, and stock photography.

Notes:

• Printing services are located in Business:Printing unless they cater specifically to consumers (such as check, greeting cards, and photo processors) in which case they should be placed in "Shopping & Classifieds:Stationary, Greeting Cards and Printing".

Computers and Internet

This vertical includes original equipment manufacturers (OEM) such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard, software, as well as popular non-retail sites such as search engines, directories (including white and yellow pages), web-based email apps (such as gmail), and social networking sites. Virtually all software will be found in this category (with the exception of video games).

Notes:

• Video games are found under Lifestyle:Gaming.
• Manufacturers of Enterprise IT equipment (such as Barracuda) are found in Business:IT Solutions

Education

Financial Services

This vertical includes primarily B2C financial services sites including insurance, banking, credit cards, investing, mortgage, tax and retirement planning. It also includes sites which buy or sell cold, silver, and coins.

Notes:

• Sites that lend money to businesses are found under Business:Business Loans and Capital

Government & Nonprofit

This category includes government, public services, non-profit, religious, and political websites.

Notes:

• Non-profit health organizations focused on specific diseases are located under Health:General Disease Information and Support

Health

This vertical includes health-related categories such as dental, hospitals, weight loss, elder care and so on.

Notes:

• Lasik treatment, glasses, and contacts are found under Health:Vision.

Home & Garden

This category is intended to include retailers which primarily sell home and garden related goods and services. Retailers in other categories are located under "Shopping & Classifieds". Typical categories include appliance repair, cleaning services, plumbers, furniture retails, HVAC, exterminators, and so forth.

This category also includes real estate websites of most kinds with the exception of Commercial Real Estate (found under Business). Apartment rentals are also located in this category, but temporary (vacation and timeshare) rentals are to be placed in the Travel category.

Notes:

• Non-retail DIY/Home Improvement sites (such as www.thisoldhouse.com) are found under "Lifestyle:Home Improvement".
• Commercial Real Estate is located under "Business:Commercial Real Estate"
• Vacation and timeshare rentals are found in "Travel:Rental Properties and Timeshares"

Legal

Websites selling or advertising legal services of any type are found in this category.

Lifestyle

This vertical includes many different entertainment and hobby sites. Categories include dating, dining, family, hobbies, gaming, music, television, pets, and sports sites. With the exception of the "Pets" category, this category does not include retail sites.

Notes:

• Restaurants are found in this vertical under "Lifestyle:Dining".
• Non-retail sports sites are located under "Lifestyle:Sports", while Sporting Goods retailers are to be found under "Shopping & Classifieds:Sporting Goods".

Miscellaneous

Shopping & Classifieds

This category includes the bulk of all retail sites spanning many different categories. While most of these categories are self-explanatory, there are some standouts:

• Shopping & Classifieds:Beauty and Cosmetics includes cosmetics and skin care products (such as proactive.com).
• Consumer Electronics - this includes resellers of consumer electronics goods (including Printer Ink). Original Equipment Manufacturers are found in "Computers & Internet:Hardware Manufacturers". Sites which primarily sell mobile phones are found in Telecommunications:Mobile Phones and Accessories.
• Flowers and Mail Order Gifts - this category includes both florists as well as sellers of miscellaneous gifts which don't fall within other categories and are usually sent through the mail. These include "wine of the month" clubs and souvenir sites such as nbcuniversal.com.
• Retailers - includes department stores and other retailers which sell goods across multiple categories. Notable websites in this category are Amazon and Walmart.
• Printing, Photos, and Greetings - includes all sites which sell consumer printing services and paper-based goods, such as greeting charts, and check and photo printers. B2B printing services are not to be placed in this category. Rather they are found under "Business:Printing".
• CPG - includes all major well known Consumer Packaged Goods brands (primarily liquor, tobacco, food, and other common household items found at a grocery store). Many CPG brands sponsor sites which do not directly promote their brand (such as MyCokeRewards.com or bebe.nestle.fr). These sites are also placed in this category.
• Lasik treatment, glasses, and contacts are found under Health:Vision.
• Miscellaneous - used to classify retailers which sell unusual goods not found in any of the named categories.

Telecommunications

This category is reserved for cable television, Internet, and phone service providers. In addition, sites which primarily sell Mobile Phones and service plans are found here (and not under Shopping & Classifieds:Consumer Electronics).

Notes:

• Business Phone Systems are found in Business:Business Phone Systems, PBX, and VOIP
• Sites which primarily sell mobile phones and service plans are found here. If the site sells a wide variety of consumer electronics, it should be placed in "Shopping & Classifieds:Consumer Electronics".

Travel

This vertical is used for travel related websites. :

Notes:

• Car Rental - includes websites primarily devoted to car rentals (Hertz, Avis, etc)
• Ground Transport - includes taxi, train, bus, and short-distance travel services with the exception of car rentals
• Rental Properties and Timeshares - to be used for short-term rentals (typically while on vacation). Longer-term rentals such as apartments are placed under "Home & Garden".
• Travel Comparison Sites - includes all travel search and comparison sites which span multiple categories (hotel, car, flights, etc). Examples are kayak.com and Orbitz.
• Tourism, Attractions, and Travel Guides - used for venues and events which would likely be frequented by tourists (such as Disney World).

Uncategorized

CHICAGO, February 21, 2012 – Digital marketing intelligence provider AdGooroo (www.adgooroo.com) today unveiled Industry Insight, a versatile search marketing dashboard that provides advertisers and agencies with instant access to the world’s largest search intelligence database, including years of proprietary pay-per-click (PPC) data on virtually every industry and advertiser.

AdGooroo’s search intelligence database analyzes and collects data on millions of keywords and billions of individual search impressions per month for virtually every advertiser across more than 160 industry categories. Industry Insight enables search marketers to access this data—including specific keywords, estimated share of voice or impression share, estimated PPC spend, clickthrough rates (CTR), cost per click (CPC) and more—for each advertiser and industry category.

Using Industry Insight, search marketers have the ability to:
• Mine competitors' keyword lists to uncover new traffic opportunities
• Quickly assess 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

“Industry Insight enables search marketers to easily monitor their competitors’ every online move and to better understand trends across their vertical category,” said Richard Stokes, founder and CEO of AdGooroo. “That means having meaningful, actionable data to benchmark and optimize your own campaign performance relative to the competition and maximize your search ROI.”

“FRWD has found AdGooroo’s Industry Insight to be instrumental in helping size the search and content opportunity in new categories, for both potential clients and clients new to search or affiliate marketing,” commented Aimee Reker, partner at digital marketing firm FRWD. “Industry Insight helps inform our content creation and content marketing recommendations by revealing historical competition within the context of demand and cost. It's a simple and immediate way to see competitive trends back in time.”

Industry Insight can also be integrated with SEM Insight™, AdGooroo’s tactical intelligence tool for PPC managers, enabling daily visibility into competitors’ PPC campaigns, including all ad copy and landing pages. As an example of the benefits of integrating the two products, search marketers can filter Industry Insight reports by keyword group such as product category or top-performing keywords in order to view competitors’ PPC spend on individual product lines and more.

Central to Industry Insight is the accuracy of its data. AdGooroo measures more than 2.5 billion search impressions each month using servers located in local markets—the most accurate method of data collection possible. AdGooroo also utilizes proprietary PPC spend estimation models that are verified each month against known ad spend. Further, the company’s automated quality assurance solution provides proactive, seamless problem detection and resolution, 24 hours a day. In addition, the methodology noted above is backed up by dedicated engineering and support teams to help ensure customers’ success.

About AdGooroo

Founded in 2004, AdGooroo is a leading provider of Digital Marketing Intelligence that drives competitive advantage for Internet marketers. More than 4,000 advertisers and agencies use AdGooroo’s on-demand tools to tap into the world’s largest database of search and display marketing data and gain actionable intelligence on their top competitors’ keywords, ad creative, backlink data, campaign statistics, budgets and more. For more information, visit AdGooroo.com.

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.

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.