A new report from 360i and SearchIgnite, describes the value of the entire path a searcher takes from the first click through purchase. Data from more than 3.9 million users and 5.1 million clicks during the first quarter of 2006 confirms the fact that the more times a consumer clicks on a marketer’s ad, the more likely that consumer is to convert. In addition, the highest conversion rate (9.30%) resulted when the user’s first click and last click on a marketer’s paid search ad were both brand terms.
Other key findings include:
The report cites a Hitwise study that confirms that branded paid search terms convert better than non-branded terms in search engines, and that brand terms account for a high percentage of commercial searches. The study of 30 brands in the travel, retail, and business & finance verticals found that 75 of the top 100 search terms contained brand names, up 17% over February 2005. And SearchIgnite studies on branding found that brand terms generally represent a small percentage of the keywords that are managed in a search engine marketing campaign, yet they usually account for a disproportionate percentage of conversions.
Consumers, on average, clicked a marketer’s ad 1.33 times during the searching process. For the consumers who went on to make a purchase, they clicked a marketer’s ad 1.53 times on average – an increase of 15% compared to the overall population of consumers. Put another way, consumers who convert to buyers are more likely to spend added time searching and familiarizing themselves with a marketer’s brand, website, and offerings.
A number of factors that lead to increased conversions. concludes the report, are:
Finally, for users who start with a brand term and end with a non-brand term, says the report, the conversion rate is four times higher than for the users whose start-click and end-click is a non-brand term. And, for those searchers who click a marketer’s ads more than once, the conversion rate climbs significantly. As an extreme example, consumers who click a marketer’s ads ten times are three times as likely to convert as users who click an ad just once.
Read the complete report here.