April 17, 2008 at 9:48 pm · Filed under Search Marketing
According to a report conducted by research company Forrester Research in the US, the top customer acquisition for online retailers (in the US) is paid search, accounting for approximately 35% of new customers on average.
The research from ‘The State of Retailing 2008 Marketing Report’ highlighted that online commerce is expected to account for around 7% of all sales in 2008, with figures expected to top 300billion in five years. In addition the report stated that 53% of online retailers’ marketing budgets are spent on customer acquisition compared to 21% on retention.
Following on from paid search was organic web traffic (with 18% of new traffic), with affiliate marketing and email accounting for 7% each. However whilst paid search accounted for the highest customer acquisition, email was the most widely used online marketing tactic with around 92% of respondants saying that it was included as part of their marketing mix. Of the respondants, 79% said they would be including their paid search budgets for the forthcoming year.
April 4, 2008 at 2:47 pm · Filed under Search Marketing, PPC
According to a recent PPC Blog post, big changes are in the office for UK advertisers. Rumour has it that Google is to loosen the current rules concerning bidding on trademarks in the UK, to be more in line with those found over in the US and Canada
The move will mean UK advertisers can now bid on trademark terms, when previously they were not able to. However like the US version, advertisers will not be able to include trademarked terms within their content.
Director for Google UK, Matt Brittin said the company’s goal was to give consumers, “greater choices to help them make informed decisions”. Brittin went on to say that since introducing the policy in the US and Canada in 2004, Google had “learned that users found the greater number of ads relevant and helpful”.
Such a move in the UK though is likely to throw the cat amongst the pigeons somewhat and I would suggest further enhancement of SEO campaigns and budgets in response to this is likely, particularly in industries such as the finance sector where the levels of variation in search bevahiour also contributes to a lesser long tail than say the travel sector, and where significant paid search marketing budgets are found. Potentially this is a significant move from Google and one which could have huge knock on effects on the paid search industry as a whole.
A full overview of the proposed changes can be found here:
http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=92877&hl=en_US.
March 24, 2008 at 1:30 pm · Filed under Advertising, Search Marketing
According to recent figures from some of the bigger players in the UK travel industry, spend in online marketing services such as SEO, behavioural and PPC is significantly up on previous years, as advertisers within the sector look at making the marketing spend go further. Some reports suggest that for many travel vendors online marketing delivers nearly half the inbound sales, with many advertisers now employing a mix of more traditional above and below the line activity to compliment the increased spend in online marketing.
Evidence of this increased spend can be seen in many of the big players, with organisations such as Centre Parcs believed to have spent approximately £300000 online as the support vehicle to its offline advertising (primarily TV advertising). They are not the only advertisers with many other advertisers significantly increasing spend and online marketing activity during the first couple of months of 2008.
With the reported economic slowdown on the horizon many advertisers are looking for increased performance from the advertising, one thing Online can deliver in abundance. Certainly, with travel seen as early adopters of many new advertising channels it will be interesting to see if this shift is reflected again in other mainstream sectors.
March 12, 2008 at 5:05 pm · Filed under Digital/New Media
LinkedNW, a LinkedIn group for North West online professionals has been launched by Peter Young (Head of Online Marketing), and Will Graham (Online Marketing Manager) to encourage greater networking between people working within digital in the North West of England.
LinkedIn (according to its website) is an online network of more than 20 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 150 industries.
If you are interested in joining LinkedNW, please go to http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/50804/7F1E1E370DBB
February 21, 2008 at 3:03 pm · Filed under Search Marketing
As mentioned previously, Connectpoint are in attendance of day 2 of the SES London Expo in the Business Design centre in London. The start of a busy busy days saw a Keynote speech featuring a number of prominent members within the Search fraternity including
- Kevin Ryan - Moderator
- Mike Grehan - CEO SearchVisible
- Paul Doleman - CTO iCrossing
- Erica Schmidt - Head of Search Isobar
- Steve Kauffman - Digitas
- Bryan Eisenberg - Future Now
A special presentation was made by Nick Carr tackling in large the proposed (or not proposed) takeover of Yahoo by Microsoft. In particular he mentioned a number of the reasons organisations (such as Microsoft) may want to take over Yahoo, in particular the acquisition of IP and technology in order to compete against Google (although this was later disputed to a certain extent by the panel. Nick also highlighted the shift in mindset from a decentralised model to a centralised model - much in keeping with utility based organisations, and the transition of software as another media industry. To a certain degree this may be one of the factors behind Microsofts pursuit of Yahoo.
Nick also went on to discuss the greater efficiencies of online highlighting organisations such as Skype (200 employees - with more customers than BT), and CraigsList (an organisation of 20 people - which has been taking revenue and custom away from the traditional advertising streams. This he highlighted could result in a greater disparity between the have and have nots.
The role of the SEO/Search Marketer was the final topic addressed by Nick during his speech, highlighting the potential impact of increased visibility on personal privacy. He went on to add that we (as Search Engine Marketing specialists) have an important part to play in protecting this information. The panel was then opened up to the floor.
With it being our first trip to the SES conference series, we weren’t to sure what to expect, however it has been a very encouraging start to the conference and special mention should be made to Mike Grehan (SearchVisible & SES London), Kevin Ryan and the various speakers at the event.
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