• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, February 19, 2013

Compete, a Kantar Media company, has introduced a tool that optimizes search engine query results and paid-search ads based on consumer behavior rather than intent.

The tool, Ascend -- introduced Monday as a software-as-a-service platform -- supports real-time behavior-based analysis and metrics for a search engine results page to identify and optimize the click-path to purchase.

The dashboard gives marketers immediate insight into the ROI of existing search programs. Compete claims that it reduces overall spending in search by pinpointing and mitigating competitive exposure, as well as providing higher click-through rates by optimizing organic and paid-search campaigns.

Ascend provides metrics on three data points on the search engine result page; Position, where and when organic and paid results are seen; Creative, what titles and keywords work best in ad copy; and Engagement, click and post-click behavior.

Compete's panel of more than 2 million consumers supports the platform that measures performance across multiple engines. Reports are generated on coverage, value of paid and organic search campaigns and position, campaign copy and loss prevention.

Marketers and companies that design services to optimize copy, content and advertising across the Web have just begun to understand that behavioral sciences will create the most accurate signals to automate search engine optimization and ad-serving platforms.

A paper recently published by Hungarian physicist Albert-Laszlo Barabasi delves into the emerging science of the Web, demonstrating the connection of signals and behavior to search. It highlights the need for marketers to better understand the connection.

Barabasi suggests that any two of the 14 billion pages -- about 1 trillion Web documents in existence -- are connected within 19 clicks or less. The findings, published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, relied on a simulated model of the Web he created to better understand its structure. He discovered that although many pages are poorly connected, no matter how large the Web grows, the same interconnectedness remains.