Making the most of search

As everyone in the digital sector knows, search is responsible for a huge chunk of the online adspend pie. It was no surprise then that there was a full house at today’s IAB Engage for Search at the CBI conference centre.

Tuesday, 17 March 2009

Kieron Matthews, marketing director at the IAB, introduced the morning conference by arguing that there is a potential danger for brands to become complacent about search. However, with search spend responsible for 58.3% of online expenditure in the first half of 2008, Matthews was at pains to point out that “we mustn’t underestimate search – it’s propping up the advertising industry”.

For Matthews, “Search is like apple pie and custard. It’s so essential to our world, can you imagine not being able to search? It’s as important as food.”

Speeding up in a slowdown

Matt Brittin, director of Google opened up his keynote presentation by explaining that as a result of the global credit crunch “we are in a completely different place now than three or four months ago.” For Brittin though there are some positives to be found in the economic slowdown. “The slowdown will speed up consumer adoption of online,” said Brittin. “Those who can adapt fastest will survive.”

While Brittin argued that these are indeed difficult times and it can appear that there is no plan to navigate through the uncharted territory, a major difference is “this time, we’re digital”. Brittin went on to outline some key statistics: 41m people in the UK are online; 15 hours of YouTube videos are uploaded every minute; 17p in every £1 is spent online; 80 per cent of internet users compare prices and options. As a result, Brittin concluded: “We’re in a world of massive technological change.”

With this revolution, a new consumer has evolved, one who is “better informed” and “changing faster”. One effect of this is that while problems exist on the high street, the likes of Game, Amazon and Argos are still posting strong online results. “There’s real success still to be had in the digital sector,” argued Brittin.

Looking to the future, Brittin explained “one of the key things for us to figure out is how does search work in combination with other media”. Brittin went on to argue that when used as part of the right media mix, online can “turbo charge offline media effectiveness”. To illustrate this point, Brittin quoted Mark Greenstreet, managing director of Aegis ævolve who argued: “Search has the power to deepen brand engagement especially alongside other media”.

A natural evolution

Taking questions from the floor, Brittin was asked if the advertising practices of the past are preventing companies today from acting efficiently and at pace. “We are hamstrung to an extent”, said Brittin. “That’s one of the battles we have to fight every day.” Brittin went on to argue that we “have to get beyond” the limitations of traditional media that see the BARB panel for example being made up of 2,000 people. “That’s nuts,” concluded Brittin.

Given last week’s announcement that Google is embracing behavioural advertising technology, (in the immediate aftermath of the IAB's launch of its good practice principles) it was no great surprise that the issue was raised by the floor. “This stuff is important and powerful,” responded Brittin. “It’s a natural evolution for us.”

Search engine optimisation is really simple

Next up Gary Reid, director of search performance at The Search Works, discussed the work his agency had carried out for Thomson Worldwide. Opening up, Reid argued that “search engine optimisation is really simple”, before outlining four key issues that anyone setting up a search campaign should bear in mind:

• Work smart

• Make sure your site is indexed

• Make sure you produce relevant content

• Build authority by encouraging sites to link to you

Reid was keen to point out that search can have an immediate impact. To illustrate the point he argued that in the months following The Search Works’ involvement, Thomson’s natural search traffic increased by 310% between December 2008 and January 2009 – with overall traffic increasing by 218% over the same period.

You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out

Next up, Jonathan Beeston, client services director at Efficient Frontier, sought to outline the five most common mistakes made during the search process:

• Campaign budgets: The first problem for Beeston was in the allocation of campaign budgets, with too many companies spending too much money on too many keywords instead of focussing their attention on their most high value keywords.

• Broad match: Beeston argued that the practise of spending money on broad matches is like playing snap with a child. If companies focus on broad matches, results will be returned – but in the wrong places. As an example Beeston highlighted the fact that a Google search for “flights” returns a result for an Apple Mac Air.

• Campaign structure: “Get the structure right”, said Beeston. “Build campaigns to deliver the right ad to the right user”.

• Content network: According to Beeston, Google’s content network is growing fast. Too many companies ignore this.

• Yahoo and Microsoft: Too often Beeston sees fixed budgets for each search engine and clients who demand Yahoo and Microsoft campaigns that are exact copies of Google. “You can import Google into Yahoo or Microsoft,” said Beeston. “Don’t do it”.

To summarise, Beeston advised that you should check now for the signs of bad practice in your campaigns and be aware that paid search is still the best ad medium, but you must work it harder in 2009.

Search and social media go together like a horse and carriage

Starting the afternoon session, Antony Mayfield, head of social media at iCrossing, admitted that, talking to a room full of search experts meant that he was out of his comfort zone.

For Mayfield though, “search and social media go together like a horse and carriage”. They are “twin lenses” that brands cannot ignore, and as such they should both be at the heart of all digital marketing strategies.

Providing answers not links

With many predicting that the future growth of search lies in mobile, Charles Sword, director of monetisation connected life, at Yahoo! Europe sought to explain how brands can make the most of mobile search.

A key development according to Sword was the industry’s move away from the model which sought to simply replicate traditional search results “on a smaller screen”. Rather what we are seeing now on mobile is the delivery of “answers not links”. For Sword, another key development in the attempt to put search at the heart of the mobile experience is the fact that search takes pride of place on the mobile homepages of all major mobile networks.

Looking to the future, Sword outlined three key developments to break down the barriers to mobile search:

• Search boxes will sit on the phone’s idle screen

• Mobile search will incorporate search assist functionality

• Voice assisted search functionality will soon become available

Sword ended his presentation with his top tips for anyone looking to get involved in mobile:

• Consider the medium: People use the mobile web to communicate, because they are bored, or because they are looking for specific information, quickly. Use mobile to address these needs.

• Remember the audience: Mobile demographics skew towards the young. Build campaigns that appeal to that audience.

• Keep it simple: In mobile, less is more. UI constraints (typing, navigation, latency) require that mobile sites make it easy to find information that users are looking for. The call-to-action needs to be obvious, simple, and capable of being fulfilled from a mobile device.

• Have realistic expectations: Though it’s growing quickly, mobile internet usage is still emerging. Approach mobile marketing as an opportunity to learn about the medium and have a leg up on your competition for when mobile search usage becomes mainstream.

As important as knowing where to advertise is knowing where not to advertise

Ending the conference, Ian Saunders, managing director of Crystal Semantics, attempted to bring meaning to online marketing by discussing the role and growing importance of semantics.

Saunders began by explaining how things can go wrong for advertisers from a semantic perspective. In his most memorable examples, Saunders pointed out that ads for cutlery have appeared alongside a news item for a stabbing; ads for condoms have appeared alongside a review of the movie Troy; and ads for ladies’ hosiery have appeared alongside a site about the Chicago White Sox.

According to Saunders, consumer reaction to such bad placement of ads is highly damaging:

• 78% would think less of a brand if appeared next to inappropriate content

• 62% believed they had already seen such an ad

• 52% thought the problem would get worse

• 40% consider advertisers to blame for allowing ads to be misplaced

Not surprisingly then Saunders argued: “As important as knowing where to advertise is knowing where not to advertise”. Of course this is no simple matter however. As an example, Saunders explained that the word “Orange” has 27 possible different meanings. While this is an extreme case, according to Saunders the average alternative meanings of every word in English is 2.4.

This poses some serious issues for anyone working in search and forced Saunders to conclude that as the industry seeks to develop in the future, “we need a more holistic approach”.

To read Amy Kean's blog on Engage for Search, click here

For more pictures of the day, click here

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