The industry continuously talks about how Paid and Organic Search work better when in market together.  It’s no secret, when you have 2 listings you own more real estate or “shelf space”, but what is the degree of this impact and is it significant enough to require investment in one, when you have a reasonable presence in the other?

Google published its own recent research and presented interesting results across a variety of large brands and industries, including the finding that when both are present on a results page:  conversions increase and revenue per visitor is higher.

Additionally, Paid Search is the guaranteed way for a brand to emerge (with a reasonably competitive rank) for generic searches when Organic Search typically cannot, due to lack of meaningful content.  Google’s research (found in Google AgencyLand) shows the importance of non-brand throughout the search process as a large part (~50%) of the research phase happens on non-brand terms throughout the search cycle.

Google’s claim that “more searches + more ads = more traffic”, sums it up.  

Mantra for the marketer: Own as much real estate to capture consumer interest across the funnel.  This is precisely what Razorfish saw in our own research.

 

Razorfish Paid and Organic Synergies Research

Razorfish wanted to prove the relationship of paid and organic search visits and their impact on client revenue as well as to explore additional attributes that contributed to this revenue.  To do this we built statistical models on a year’s worth of client data of a large retailer.

The goal:  to identify key factors that impacted Organic/Paid Search revenue and quantify the synergistic or cannibalistic (if any) impacts of Paid and Organic Search channels.  The results were clear: the chemistry between the two channels worked great together!  Here’s how:

Before a consumer clicks a Paid Search ad, the probability that the consumer already visited the site’s homepage through Organic Search is very high.  Our research showed at least half (53%) of conversions and revenue happening through Paid Search are preceded by Organic Search visits within the previous 7-days.

It gets even more interesting!  For Branded Keywords, Organic Search visits impacted the Paid Search visits by 81% indicating the cyclical switching between Paid and Organic listings. The Razorfish models show strong synergy between paid/organic links, especially for Branded keywords. Our hypothesis  ( that was supported by the data), indicated that visitors use Organic Search links to navigate easily to a site’s homepage for research, before converting through Paid Search ads.

In spite of this ‘friends with benefits’ relationship between paid and organic: why does the paid link get the edge? As consumers research across both non-brand and brand keywords, Promotional messaging on Paid Search ads trigger conversions by reducing research time-span. The paid link triggers the conversion and is just the better deal since it offers you more ‘benefits’.

Playing defense against your competition is important.

What else did we learn?  Organic Search links and Premium Paid Search ranking (top ranked ads above Organic listings – not right rail) drives greater coverage on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) and prevents diversion of traffic to competitor sites.  So when someone asks “is it important to buy keywords if you already show up in Organic Search, even Position 1?”  The answer for the most part is YES!  Otherwise you set yourself up to lose that traffic and potential revenue to your competitors.  Our research quantified this impact: for every unit increase in Competitor coverage (a unit was defined as premium listing, vs. top 3 right rail, etc.) revenue declines by ~12%.  But more interestingly for every increase in Paid Search ranking (that resulted in a click), revenue increased 10%.  This tells us your revenue declines at a faster rate when your ranking slips.

This data tells us to protect our ranking, but it should be our standard practice to prevent competitors, negative ads or misleading messages from exploiting the SERP space for our brands.  It’s a crowded marketplace so advertisers must blend Art and Science when managing a Paid Search campaign to ensure our campaigns are successful in hitting our client’s goals (profit/sales/leads) with a mix of Awareness and strategic placements that keep the purchase funnel full and push competitors down.

In Summary:  Organic Search plays an important navigational role in the consumer behavioral patterns while Paid Search is known to close the deal to a conversion as promotional messaging trigger the close.  Again, just mere investment in Paid Search is not enough, but aggressive ranking in both channels is key to positive impact on client revenue.

 

Why Paid and Organic Work Well Together

• Consumers convert  after multiple types of searches and clicks, in their ‘research’ phase
• Organic Search ranks well for Brand terms(read:  mostly navigational), but Paid Search can fill the gap on Non-Brand coverage (read:  awareness, deal-breaker offers)
• Paid Search messaging can be managed, tested and optimized.  And promotional language helps to close the consumer to the desired action.
• You can ensure an optimal experience by driving consumers deep into a designated landing page that relates to the intent of the search query through Paid Search ads.
• The more coverage you have, the less room available for competitors to steal traffic and revenue
• 1+1 = >2 (Friends with benefits can end up having a family!)

It is my theory that human beings are inherently self-obsessed and in need of constant attention.

For years, people had to call or meet up with friends to update them on the latest happenings in their lives.  As lives became busy and distances grew, that evolved to emails sent to friends.  A circle of friends was limited to 20, maybe 30 people.

But that wasn’t enough.  We wanted more friends, more attention.

Enter Facebook.

At first, it was great.  It brought long lost friends together, reunited families across the world, allowed young men to gaze at bikini pictures of young women they barely knew.

But then it got worse.

There came a point where it basically allowed people to broadcast to the world what only their Toto used to know.

Just ate a ham and cheese? Why not tell Facebook about it.  Caught your bus on time?  Facebook would want to know. You favorite baseball team just won one of 162 regular season games? Facebook’s gotta know.  Went to work on a Monday just like everyone else?  You get the point.

If there was an inane, vapid comment popping up in your brain, you had a medium to broadcast it.  What was worse was that there were people commenting on those posts, encouraging and enabling that behavior.

Enter Google+, the anti-Facebook.  Social networkers weary of the Hyde Park podium that is Facebook rejoiced.

Ah, circles.  Circles, where you could create little groups of friends and post information that was relevant just to those friends.

Did your team just win a cricket match?  Celebrate with your “Cricket Fanz” circle.  Found out about a job opening at your company? Help out your buddies in the “9.2% of My Friends” circle.  Just won the lottery?  Oh, what the hell, post it to everyone.

But it didn’t work.  Man’s inherent need for unwarranted attention and self-importance came in the way.

In my three weeks of using Google+, I have seen it become yet another extension of Facebook.  In an absolutely unscientific survey of my stream, 85% of the posts are still sent to the “Public”.  Even “Limited” posts are addressed to over 50 people.

Could circles already be dead?

I hope not, because I think it’s an idea Facebook was never able to figure out (or maybe didn’t want to figure out).  It could be that people are still warming up to the idea and we will see more use of it in the near future.

Until then, I look forward to the day I will have only relevant content in my stream.  Sorry, friend-who-just-saw-a-puppy-and-decided-to-post-a-picture-of-it, I really don’t care.

Are you having similar experiences? Will Google+ ultimately succeed? Click the link to vote!

Earlier this week, I received a heads up from my Google rep that the tablet interface for Google search will be changing to look just like mobile. This comes at no surprise considering the incredible growth of tablets.  It looks like the change has taken effect this morning, and instead of the desktop style interface with up to 10 ads, there are now only 2 – 5 ads. The new interface focuses on making content more visible and accessible for tablet users by increasing the size of the search button, adding more white space, and making the search results bigger.

 

OLD INTERFACE:

 

 

NEW INTERFACE:

 

 

What does this mean?  Search marketers will need to be more vigilant and cautious about how they manage advertising on tablets, and some initial optimizations will be required.

Following is a quick how-to on getting your campaigns up-to-date with this change:

1. If you haven’t already, split out your campaigns to Desktop, Tablet, and Mobile.  This is a best practice Google has been pushing for a while, and with this new change it has become almost essential.
2. If you already have your campaigns split, take a look at your Tablet/iPad bids, and ensure that you are in 1^st or 2^nd position.  Similar to mobile, most traffic will come from the top 2 or 3 positions because there is no right sidebar, and no one’s really going to scroll all the way to the bottom for additional ads.
3. If you don’t have Sitelinks activated on iPad, do it.  This will actually ensure that you are the only advertiser showing up on top, giving you access to pretty much all the paid search traffic for that term.

With these steps, we can definitely expect much higher CTRs, as the user will get a much simpler, cleaner interface to work with.  The coming few weeks should be interesting to see how this change pans out, and what effects it has on overall campaign performance.

 

OVERVIEW

Google+ is a new social networking destination, reaching more than ten million users in its first few weeks of field trial. While it is natural to compare Google+ to Facebook, its founding concept does not entirely mirror that of Facebook’s. Google+ is positioned as more than just another social network, and Google’s new theme that changed the look and feel across all products (Search, Email, Calendar, etc.) is a testament to that. The core idea around Google+ and the Google +1 Button is “Google + You”, which is Google’s overarching plan to move the search engine into the next era, fight web spam, and make the company more social.

This POV is intended for performance marketers trying to understand the potential impact of the Google+ launch on their digital media programs. The information contained in this POV highlights key implications for marketers, business implications for Google, and introduces several important features of this new social network.

BUSINESS IMPLICATIONS

With recent buzz around a Facebook IPO, Google timed the launched of Google+ perfectly. Google has invested more than $585MM in Google+, a product that also added $20B to Google’s market cap within weeks of launching.

Why is Google+ attracting so much buzz and consumer interest? Facebook is needy, time consuming and, after more than 750 million people joined, it’s a stretch to call it “cool” anymore. Since Hitwise reported that 25% of all U.S. pageviews came from Facebook, marketers and advertisers dropped their jaws and assembled their teams to begin increasing advertising on the social network. However, this level of usage isn’t always a good thing for consumers and exposes new risks that the social network must innovate against – Facebook fatigue. Facebook users have too much to check, too much to update, too many messages to respond to, and too many new friend requests from people they barely know. This overwhelming responsibility makes users shut down and disconnect with the very reason they joined the social network.

Initial buzz around Google+ is fueling its rapid adoption; however, if this excitement and adoption rate plateaus too soon, it will pose a huge threat to the lasting success of Google+. Like many social-centric products, this adoption and growth is impacted by network effect. The more people you know who are actively using Google+, the more value it will provide to you personally. If adoption and usage falls flat, it could initiate a domino effect that causes users to abandon the new social network.

SUMMARY OF KEY IMPLICATIONS

Google+ has many implications across the entire breadth of Google’s products, ranging from photo sharing applications such as Picasa to video sharing platforms such as YouTube and, of course, Search. Search has the most to gain from Google+’s success.

Google has been searching for the answer to an extremely important question, “how do we make Search more social?”

It’s very likely that links shared and +1’d within Google+ and +1’d across the internet will begin to impact Google search results. With the Google +1 button being clicked more than 2.3 billion times per day and equally impressive numbers around Google+ sharing, Google is inching closer to its answer.

If Google+ can sustain its early growth, advertisers should ready their owned assets and build a presence on this new network. In addition to the user engagement you may receive within Google+, having a dominant presence within the network may also impact your brand’s visibility across the internet.

HOW IT WORKS AND SPOTLIGHT FEATURES

Not surprisingly, Google+ works in a similar fashion to Facebook. Users can create robust profiles, post comments, links, photos, videos, and re-share posts from other users, etc.

However, Google+ has several distinct features as well.

 

New Google Theme and Toolbar

 

This was the framework to make “You” a part of the Google experience, regardless of what Google product you are using. The new theme will eventually rollout with the same look and feel across all Google products, connecting you to your activities across Google properties like never before.

 

Comment and Share, Anywhere

No matter what Google product you are using, if you’re signed in, you’re able to immediately receive notifications from your Google+ social network and instantly comment back, all within this new widget and without actually visiting the Google+ destination interface.

 

+1 Button

 

With the early success of Google’s +1 Button (adoption rate now above Twitter) and the launch of Google+, the main thrust of Google’s “Google + You” initiative is becoming clearer. Google, and all search engines, are drowning in web spam. By giving users a personal benefit to +1 web content, Google is effectively collecting quality assurance data at massive scale – the scale needed to minimize web spam. It’s not just about search, though. Google wants to become your “+1″ for all your web activities.

 

Sparks

 

Sparks in Google+ are simply themed content aggregators, similar to Google Reader and Google Alerts. The user specifies a particular interest and Google+ aggregates related content around the internet and adds it as a Spark on the user’s Google+ homepage.

 

KEY IMPLICATIONS

 

Search Market Growth

Many have speculated about Facebook’s plan to create a search engine. Now, flip that scenario. Google creates a social network with more than 100 million users in the U.S., and this social network connects all Google products. Suddenly, non-Google search users begin using other Google products, ultimately leading to them changing their primary search engine. If this happens, three potential possibilities emerge:

1)  Google gains market share against the Yahoo and Bing Alliance.

2)  By giving consumers more methods to perform search queries, such as search being integrated with Google+, the overall volume of search queries grows.

3)  Total search volume increases and Google outgrows the category as a whole to continue dominating market share.

 

Photo Sharing Market Growth (Picasa)

Photos added to Google+ are automatically added to Picasa, Google’s competitor to Yahoo’s Flickr, the leading photo sharing service.

 

Video Sharing Market Growth (YouTube)

Videos added to Google+ are played within Google+ only, using the YouTube framework for playback. In the future, it seems likely that consumers will have the option to link Google+ videos to their YouTube account. YouTube is already the leading video sharing service and a top search engine in and of itself.

Also, YouTube links posted to Google+ are automatically hyperlinked using the YouTube video’s title as anchor text. This could indicate that Google is placing increased importance on cleaning up the quality and ranking signals of YouTube, the second largest search engine. If so, this immediately impacts how you should optimize YouTube video naming for broader reach within and outside of YouTube.

 

Web Email Client Growth (Gmail)

To join Google+, consumers must create a Google account. The Google account is the gateway to all Google products and was started by Gmail, Google’s web email client. Whereas Facebook’s attempt to allow its users to use Facebook as an email client seems to have failed, Google’s positioning as the consumer’s “+1″ for all web activities may give it an advantage in effectively cross-promoting Gmail adoption. This holds especially true since Gmail can also be a stand-alone email client, exclusive of its social network counterpart.

 

Location-Based Services and Local Deals (Google Places and Google Offers)

This feature operates like many Location-Based Services (LBS) before it, such as Facebook Places and Foursquare. Mobile users can quickly check-in to local businesses and share this across their Google+ network. This local focus may also impact Google Offers in the future, especially if users are able to +1 and share offers within Google+. This feature could help drive user adoption, scale, and give Google a unique offering within this coveted space. Also, imagine the opportunity for Google to serve users these Offers within search results or within Google+ if they have searched “pizza” in NYC.

 

Social Gaming (Google+ Games)

This unannounced feature is hidden in the source code of Google+. Google’s entrance into the social gaming community isn’t a big surprise when reviewing recent investments made by the company, namely the $100MM+ invested in Zynga, a leading social gaming company.

 

Internet Browser Growth (Chrome)

This will be the hardest to win for Google. While its Chrome browser has gained ground in the web browser war, it is still far behind the likes of Internet Explorer and Firefox. However, if millions of consumers flock to Google+, this gives Google the perfect opportunity to feature its web browser on Google+ users’ homepage, think: “For the best Google+ Experience, Use Google Chrome.”

 

Personalized Search and Improved Quality

Bing partnered with Facebook to help personalize search results and fight against web spam. Google recently relinquished its contract with Twitter, possibly signaling bigger changes coming to Google’s algorithmic search results. The problem with these search engine + social network partnerships is exactly what Google+ is looking to solve: social networks as destination portals. What consumers do within their social networks does not always coincide with consumer behavior on a search engine.

While consumers do share impressive amounts of information, links, and other content within social networks, matching these “Likes” to search results and porting this massive amount of information into a search engine algorithm is not easily accomplished. However, Google+ and Google’s +1 Button provide the leading search engine with the information social networks provide, already in the format and platform that Google needs. For example: a consumer “Likes” a URL and shares it on Facebook. Google would then have to find and match that URL in Facebook to the exact URL within their database and attribute a “Like” to it. This “Like” is stored within Facebook’s database and comes in a different format than Google’s. Now, imagine a consumer “+1′s” a URL. That back end connection to Google’s database happens instantly, enabling real-time personalization and immediate quality improvements.

 

Search Targeting

What is one of the largest opportunities for search engines that Display marketers love? Demographic and behavior targeting. If you’re signed in to Google+ or any Google product, you’ve most likely given Google your gender, age, location, and probably more. If you’re +1′ing links around the web, you’re telling Google what you are interested in (Sparks in Google+ as well), what you’re in-market for, or what you simply “Like”, which enables Google to aggregate these +1′s into “interest categories.” Search marketers could then potentially target not only the search query, but the “search query” + “males” + “ages: 34-54″ + “living in NYC” + who have “+1′d the automotive interest category.”

Imagine two sections of paid search ads within Google Search: “Related to your search” and “Related to your interests”. This is purely speculative, but the opportunity does exist for Google to take it this far.

Next, imagine ads within Google+ that target “users who have searched within the automotive industry in the past 3 months” + “males” + ages: 34-54″. This extra layer of “users who have searched” immediately indicates consumers who are in-market and becomes a powerful targeting attribute within the network.

CONCLUSIONS

Currently, businesses are being asked to stay out of Google+, with promises of business-oriented solutions coming soon. Ads are also absent on Google+, as the company will evaluate user adoption during the field trial prior to its full-scale launch. However, Google became an idolized, multi-billion dollar company by creating simple text advertisements and streaming revenue by the click, so it’s safe to assume we will see advertisements on Google+ in the future.

The greatest implications for search marketing are market share, personalization, quality, and targeting. If all of these are capitalized on by Google, the search giant may be well on its way to creating the next generation of search. However, as with all web innovations, success is contingent on user awareness and adoption.

If Google can keep Google+ simple to use, provide a unique utility not found with Facebook or other networks, and shy away from the time-draining destination feel of its competitors, Google+ has the opportunity to win.

———-

If you would like this POV in PDF form, please download it here: Razorfish Google+ POV.

 

Imagine you are standing at your local grocery store, looking at a shelf full of toothbrushes. You may or may not be loyal to a brand at the shelf, but you probably have some criterion to help decide your purchase, even if subconsciously. During this process, often called the First Moment of Truth in the CPG world, a key facet of marketing comes into play: perception. In this case, product placement tactics influence consumer perception.

Today’s product placement is based on research that suggests the average consumer begins their shelf-shopping experience at eye level, works from left to right, and makes their purchase decision in less than 8 seconds.

Let’s illustrate an example of product placement tactics based on these insights.

Company A has a lot of clout over this particular retailer, so it is able to control a larger SOV at the shelf, in the premium positions they want. With this, the company effectively arranges its product offering at eye level and increases price from left to right (shown as the green box). This begins to create the perception that everything to the right on the shelf is more expensive. Also, consumers eyes aren’t as drawn to the bottom of the shelf, so brands on that lower level receive less consideration than those near the consumer’s eye level. With these points in mind, Company A effectively “boxes out” competitors and forces them to play in no man’s land, where price is high and consumer attention is low (shown as the red box).

P&G is known for their aggressive product placement tactics, and it reflects what you see at the shelf, the order you see it in, and ultimately, what you end up buying.

Why does this matter to digital marketers?

Product placement on your website allows you to control the user experience, cross-promote and up-sell. The order in which consumers see products will ultimately help form certain perceptions, influence next steps, and inform purchase decisions.

Let’s now illustrate a product placement test online.

Company A sells luxury vehicles in this case. The consumer is comparing vehicles based on price, features, and available options. She or he wants to get the most luxurious, premium car possible without breaking the bank. How you craft and frame this comparison experience can largely impact your consumer’s perceptions of value and their next steps. For example, could the order of your offer impact the consumer’s mindset?

In this example, the control experience is sorted by price only, from left to right. In the experience (row 2), the most expensive and most beneficial option is placed second. If the consumer sees benefits in this order, they may have a different perception of value vs. the control experience. Personally, if I’m buying a large ticket product, a few extra $10’s in my monthly payment isn’t going to discourage me if the value I’m getting is much higher than the other option.

By showing the consumer that he or she is financially able to own a more powerful, more prestigious, more luxurious vehicle, that consumer is likely to change paths and find ways to make the superior vehicle work within their budget. Had the vehicles not been compared in such a manner, the consumer may have a completely different perception of value within this auto manufacturer’s portfolio.

What is learned in traditional and shopper marketing shouldn’t be stranded when creating your brand experience online. Instead, these disciplines should learn from each other’s concepts in order to build the best brand and consumer experience possible.