Google Leads in Explicit, Total Core Searches

Google Slightly Loses Explicit Core Search Share Google Sites led the US explicit core search market (which measures user engagement with a search service with the intent to retrieve search results) in July 2010 with 65.8% market share, down 0.4 percentage points from June 2010, followed by Yahoo Sites with 17.1% (up 0.4 percentage points) and Microsoft sites with 11%. Ask network captured 3.8% of explicit core searches, followed by AOL LLC with 2.3%. Read more at www.marketingcharts.com

Based on the quantity and quality of leads generated, companies said email was their best lead generation program, followed by live events, website registrations and webinars. The effectiveness of online channels, coupled with the fact that prospects indicate the web is the first place they look for more information, makes it natural for companies to be increasing their investments in web design, email marketing and search engine optimization.

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A flurry of paid-search reports released Tuesday may have marketers’ heads spinning, but each provides insights into specific parts of the process.

SearchIgnite released the Q2 2010 U.S. Search Market Report Tuesday. Year-over-year paid-search spend increased 14% in the U.S., following an 11% YoY increase, sequentially.

Similar to Efficient Frontier’s report, SearchIgnite found retailers spent more — about 7% — compared with the prior year. Microsoft’s search engine Bing gained market share by 26% from the year-ago quarter, but declined 9.6% sequentially. Overall, Bing dropped slightly to 6.2% share of search spend in the U.S., while Google and Yahoo reached 78.4% and 15.4%, respectively.

Google increased the average number of paid-search ads shown per search session by 15%, followed by Yahoo at 22% and Bing at 11%. More premium ads in sponsored listings and down the right rail don’t necessarily suggest good news, however. Increasing ad coverage can diminish returns, and result in a poor experience for consumers, according to the report.

Relying on Google for metrics, the report suggests that consumers can withstand between 5.5 and 6.0 ads per search query. Yahoo now serves up 6.85, making it unlikely the increase in ads will lead to additional revenue. Bing serves up about 3.85 ads per keyword, so it’s “extremely” likely that this will reflect in better-than-expected revenues for the search engine. Similarly, Google went from 4.97 to 5.72, so they could report healthy increases as well.

Google now monetizes nearly 8% more of their keyword searches. Stokes says keywords searched with no ads decreased from 43.6% in Q1 to 39.7% in June, making the inventory easier to monetize.

In the Americas, paid-search spending by tech companies increased 12% during the second quarter, while the Asia/Pacific region rose 33%, sequentially. Combined, spending in Europe, the Middle East and Africa grew 25%. Google’s China strategy and move to serve content from Hong Kong has influenced performance. During the second quarter, Google’s share in the region dropped from 69% to 61%, while Baidu’s share of paid-search spending rose to 22% from 12%, sequentially. Read more at www.mediapost.com

Google Slips, AOL Gains in Customer Satisfaction

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Yahoo, Microsoft Make Slight Gains Google Sites led the US core search market in June with 62.6% of the searches conducted (down 1.1 percentage points from May), followed by Yahoo Sites (up 0.6 percentage points to 18.9%), and Microsoft Sites (up 0.6 percentage points to 12.7%).

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New Chart: The Expected Future Impact of Search Innovations

SUMMARY: Recent search engine innovations have changed the SEO landscape as we know it. What impact will personalized, real time, mobile and video search have on an organization’s SEO campaigns in the next 1–5 years? In this week’s chart, you’ll learn which innovations are expected to have the greatest impact.

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New Chart: The Allocation of SEO Budgets

SUMMARY: How are small, medium and large organizations allocating SEO budgets differently? In this week’s chart, you’ll learn what portion of SEO budgets various SEO expenses are taking for small, medium and large organizations, in regards to staff salaries, agency expenses, analytics programs and purchasing inbound links.

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Top Search Engines by Share of Visits April vs. May 2010

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Very Effective SEO Objectives by Primary Market

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27.0% report more than 50% of their online sales are attributable to search engine marketing: Percent of Online Sales Attributable to Search Engine Marketing   % by Type of Retailer Percent of Sales All Chain Catalog Web  Manufacturer 5% or less 17.0% 16.7 27.3 16.2 11.1 6-10 9.0 25.0 0.0 8.8 0.0 11-15 11.0 16.7 9.1 10.3 11.1 16-20 7.0 8.3 0.0 7.4 11.1 21-25 9.0 8.3 9.1 8.8 11.1 26-30 8.0 0.0 36.4 2.9 22.2 31-40 9.0 8.3 9.1 8.8 11.1 41-50 3.0 8.3 0.0 2.9 0.0 > 50% 27.0 8.3 9.1 33.8 22.2 Source: Internet Retailer, May 2010 Google dominates the search engine landscape. Yahoo has been the perennial second-place finisher. Bing, has been making inroads since its launch in June 2009, and gaining increasing attention from retail marketers. 19.4% of respondents to the Internet Retailer survey say more than 90% of their search engine traffic comes from Google: ·      43.9% say 71% to 90%, ·      25.5% report 50% to 70% ·      11.2% report less than 50% Read more at www.mediapost.com

According to Internet Retailer’s recent search engine marketing survey of 102 web-only retailers, chain retailers, catalogers and consumer brand manufacturers, 28.0% of merchants report more than 25% of their site traffic stems from paid search advertisements, while 51.5% say more than a quarter of their traffic comes from natural search. Search engine marketing is one of Internet retailing’s fundamentals, says the report. Web merchants keep pouring money into advertising on search results pages and on search engine optimization projects to move up in natural search results.

In the past year: ·      44.9% of merchants report that the conversion rate on pay-per-click search advertising went up ·      16.3% say it went down ·      38.8% say their conversion rate held steady ·      47% report more than 25% of their web sales stem from search engine marketing ·      44.6% increased their paid search budgets ·      49% say they will increase it in the year ahead Shar VanBoskirk, Vice President and principal analyst at Forrester Research, says “Everything we see from the retail side indicates… considerable interest and investment in search related to… driving more online sales.” 37.7% of respondents spent more than 50% of their online marketing budget, 11.9% spent 61% to 75%, and 20.8% spent more than 75%, according to the Internet Retailer survey of IRNewsLink e-newsletter readers conducted with e-mail marketing and survey firm Vovici Corp. Read more at www.mediapost.com

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The “2010 Digital Marketing Outlook” report found that 81% of the brand executives surveyed expected an increase in digital projects in 2010, and one-half will be moving dollars from traditional to digital budgets. Further, more than three-quarters think the current economy will push more allocations to digital.

Senior marketers reported that social networks and applications were their biggest priority for 2010, followed closely by digital infrastructure. While social media marketing looks set to stay top of mind, a majority of respondents considered a range of digital activities at least “important,” with only games failing to inspire widespread interest.

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Dotomi announced results from the use of its attribution technology which reiterates the impact strong attribution models can have in driving display or any digital media’s future growth. From the release: “Dotomi found display increased performance by an average of 20 percent in paid search, 26 percent in natural search, 25 percent in affiliate marketing, 16 percent in CRM email and 26 percent in direct load, where the consumer goes directly to the retailer’s website.” Pour on the attribution for display, and it’s full steam ahead! Read the release. Read more at www.adexchanger.com

SUMMARY: Competition between companies and their affiliates is natural. Affiliates can be very effective at creating revenue-generating traffic through search so there’s an inherent tension in the system. See the main attitudes/policies with which merchants attempt to deal with this issue.

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SUMMARY: Today, many marketers have been forced to make sacrifices to accommodate smaller budgets. This decrease in elastic budgets has caused many companies to run out of available money when they need it most, reducing their ability to meet consumer demand for their keywords.

The Elasticity of Client Search Budgets

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More than 113 billion searches were conducted in July worldwide, representing a 41% increase year-over-year, according to new data from comScore. Google was responsible for the vast majority of search activity, with 76.7 billion searches conducted in July, which represented a 67.5% market share. Yahoo ranked second worldwide with 8.9 billion searches, or a 7.8% share — followed closely by Chinese search engine Baidu with 8 billion searches, or a 7% share.

Globally, Europe accounts for the most searches, but Latin America is highest in searches per searcher. The dynamics of search behavior vary considerably across different parts of the world. Among the five global regions, Europe accounted for the highest share of searches at 32.1%, followed by Asia-Pacific — 30.8% — and North America — 22.1%. Notably, Latin America exhibited the heaviest search behavior per person with an average of 13 search usage days in July and 130 searches per searcher. Europe had the second-highest overall search volume per person — 117 searches per searcher — while North America exhibited the second-heaviest frequency — 12.5 search usage days per searcher. Read more at www.mediapost.com