• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, March 31, 2006

A recently released comScore research study confirms the importance of search influence of offline buying. 63 percent of searchers completed a purchase in offline retail stores following their search activity, while 25 percent of searchers purchased an item directly related to their query, with more than 1/3 of them buying online. The study reflects the searching behavior of 83 million Americans who conducted more than 552 million searches in 2005 in the categories analyzed using one or more of the 24 leading search engines.

 James Lamberti, vice president of comScore Search Marketing Solutions, said "... the important role of search in influencing consumers' purchase behavior both online and offline... can often be responsible for the major portion of the overall financial return from investments in search marketing."

 John McAteer, head of retail, Google, the research sponsor, said "This research helps quantify exactly how influential search really is for the overall buying process."

More than 80 percent of buyer conversions occurred offline in categories such as Consumer Electronics, Toys & Hobbies, Video Games and Consoles, and Music/Movies/Videos.  

This study found that more than half of consumers' online holiday buying actually happened in subsequent Internet sessions, clearly demonstrating the strong latent impact of search. 

Among the 83 million consumers who searched in one or more of the eleven product categories analyzed during the holiday season, the 8.6 million who subsequently bought online were much more intense users of search across all product categories, performing nearly ten times the number of searches compared to non-buyers. 

Additionally, the study indicates that 60 percent of all searchers started their search process before November 15, 2005.  For search advertisers, these statistics imply that holiday-season advertising budgets should be sufficiently large and applied early enough to cover for the aggressive search behavior of buyers.

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