Search remains King..but is that the complete picture?
Posted by Keith Tan in Marketing, Measurement on September 19th, 2008
According to research firm eMarketer, search-ad spending will reach $10.4 billion this year, doubling what will be spent on display ads.
This means that Google, who currently control more than 70% of the U.S search market, would retain its dominancy, as search represents 42% of all ad spending. Display ads currently account for half that figure.
So yes. This must obviously mean that those plain text ads are the safest and most cost effective way of spending your marketing budget.
Well…not really. In fact, search and display ads do not have to be mutually exclusive.
Atlas Solutions’ latest report findings showed that “When marketers supplement search with display impressions, they get a significant lift in conversions. Unfortunately, most advertisers that run both search and display are unaware of this…†The study demonstrated that “users exposed to both search and display ads convert at a higher rate: an average of 22 percent better than search alone and 400 percent better than display only.”
Now did those stats make you do a double take? But hey why not, it does make sense.
Display ads are great for driving brand awareness while search ads, being contextual in nature, have always provided better clickthroughs and conversions. Combine them both and you’ll stand a higher chance to closing that sale.
“The study, entitled “Close the Loop: Understanding Search and Display Synergy,†found that when combined, search and display advertising deliver profoundly better results than when used independently. The study showed a significant lift in onsite engagement and an increase in online and offline purchasing by consumers who are exposed to integrated campaigns that employ both types of online advertising.”
And from Google…or formerly Google
“Grant MacFarlane, head of search at Havas agency Media Contacts and previously head of client services at Google, agrees. “Search often takes the glory for the purchase, as a lot of agencies can’t track back to see where someone saw a banner ad that got them searching in the first place,” he says. “We’ve seen a 15% or 20% uplift when you run display and search in tandem.”
There are tools that help clients track how their different ad types are performing in relation to one another. Yahoo provides an online advertising tracking solution called “Full Analytics†that measures how that display ad was driving additional conversions to your other ad channels.
So the next time you’re planning your online ad campaign, try to do a mix of both. Measure your ROIs and see whether two, is better than one.
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