Posts Tagged search enigine marketing

By Tom Polanski, EVP, eBrand Media and eBrand Interactive

Even though online consumers are spending less per transaction than a year ago, retailers have spent 33% more on search marketing through the first half of the fourth quarter reports a new study.  

The study notes that visitors to retail e-commerce sites through the first half of Q4 converted to buyers at a slightly higher rate than during the same period last year, up 0.25%. At the same time, however, average order values have declined by 6.2%, according to the study, “Mid Q4 2008 U.S. Search Market Report.” The study tracked more than 30 million clicks on ads on the Google, Yahoo and MSN search engines during the first half of the fourth quarters in 2007 and 2008. 

The increase in spending on search marketing despite the decline in average order value indicates that retailers are relaxing their goals for return on investment from search marketing. At the same time, retailers are aggressively using paid search to capture more of consumers’ online purchasing, the firm adds.

Shar Van Boskirk, a marketing analyst at Forrester Research Inc., says she has found that the struggling economy has prompted marketers to spend more on paid-search and other direct-response marketing tools. “My research with interactive marketers indicates that they are happily increasing spend on search marketing (as well as other interactive, direct response marketing tools like e-mail) in a recession,” she says. “Not only is online search a measurable tool, but it also tends to work because it finds shoppers when they are in-market and actively researching or shopping.”

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