Posts Tagged ‘search engine marketing’

Update on International Search Review 4 – India

December 28th, 2010

Well, our review on the Search Market in India was the fourth in our series of International Search Reviews from Reform. It was an interesting piece, but I figured the best way to learn how the market really works and to generate insight is to actually go there (for a holiday of course). So here are some things that I inadvertently learned while in India, from a search and web perspective.

Things I learned in India:

1) The Market – As we’ve all been hearing, India is a market that’s barely tapped when it comes to internet usage, and the online population is set to explode, like it has in China.

Now that I’ve been there, I’m not sure if I agree 100%. While things like food and transportation were much cheaper in India than in the west, broadband was actually pretty much the same price as in the west, if not more expensive in some places. Many “offers” were still in the 15-45 dollar per month range, at the very least.

Considering that buying a home is significantly cheaper in India and an average salary is about $3.5k (though figures online do vary quite a bit, so to put it in perspective, some of the top jobs in India are in IT and they still make under 10k USD on average), broadband is proportionately an expensive offering and only for the well off. And from being outside the major cities part of the time, it felt even more far fetched (mainly because broadband was not available everywhere yet).

Though I did see a fair few billboards advertising “high speed internet access coming soon”. So at least it will be an option outside the major cities soon.

2) Google Billboards – Speaking of billboards. Google buys billboard advertising spaces on the highways of Delhi. However it took a few passes to realise it was a Google advertisement, and considering how manic the traffic is in India, with constant horns blaring and cars cutting in from all angles in their attempt to convert a three lane road into eight lanes – I doubt anyone even notices it.

Plus, they probably shouldn’t encourage speed on these roads anyway. By that I mean, the ad is for Google Chrome and it’s mainly a picture of a Windows-esque folder that says “Install Speed” on it – with Chrome’s logo in the bottom right corner. Google does dominate the search market here, perhaps because the search market is mainly those who are quite internationally savvy to begin with. Ask the regular people on the street and some of them will have no idea who Google is.

So putting an ad up that is mainly for people who already know who you are is a bit misleading.  The ad looked too subtle perhaps.  Where as every other ad on the road had the brand name in big letters, pushing the big brand name as much as it can.

3) Use PPC and Affiliate Networks To Make Money At Home! – I did manage to get a camera shot of this (shown below), seen all over trains and lampposts especially in Mumbai. Yes, perhaps some of the stereotypes are true unfortunately. Just click away on affiliates, fill surveys, click PPC ads, enter data, etc and make money at home! Ezeeincome.com was one of several sites advertising here, the shot above was from an “economy car” in one of Mumbai’s overland trains, which were busy as expected, but still worth using, though perhaps not during rush hour.

Beyond search, big name sites like TripAdvisor.in will “reimburse” you for reviews, with credits and vouchers one can use elsewhere.  On a computer in India, I saw a pop-up saying I could earn money with each review made on tripadvisor.in, but taking a screenshot was the last thing I was thinking of at that moment (plus it wasn’t my computer!).

4) Mobile Phones – The government is discussing a national broadband plan for the coming years. But with current offerings costing a fair portion of many people’s monthly salary – hopeful predictions like http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/infotech/internet/237-mn-internet-users-in-India-by-2015-Report/articleshow/6479094.cms are still far away. However, mobile broadband will make it much more possible.

Everyone seemed to have a mobile phone out there. Some looked like the one I had ten years ago. But I also saw many phones that were perhaps newer than my current phone. Even outside the cities, I saw kids calling and texting away – while piled on a 3 seater vehicle that had more than ten people in it, so this is definitely a market ready for mobile broadband. But 3G mobile broadband is not readily available yet, especially outside the big cities.

So why the big mobile takeup? Well, it doesn’t require a full computer, and it’s cheaper. Basic plans started from under $6 per month, with text messages costing less than two pennies. Calls were also about one cent a minute. But again, adding wireless internet access to the mobile phone was expensive. And 3G wireless access is just being launched – so even though many people had 3G compatible phones, they were using them for traditional means such as phone calls! Chances are the mobiles might have came with the plans, as the actual mobile device costs are again similar to that in the west, which means too expensive for most.

Articles like http://www.domain-b.com/industry/telecom/20101227_mobile_network.html are perhaps misleading. Yes, there are more mobile phone subscribers and their phones are connected to a wireless network, but the network is not necessarily one with any real internet access, let alone 3G. Major provider Tata only launched 3G in November 2010, while Airtel delayed their launch till 2011.

So will people be using their 3G phone for things like video chats and internet access when ready? Not if the Indian government have any say, as they look to delay plans further – http://www.slashgear.com/india-faces-3g-data-video-call-ban-over-real-time-security-fears-22120687/

On a side note, I didn’t see a single iPhone.  Everyone had Nokias!  I even looked this up when I got back and turns out that most of the top phones in India are in fact Nokias and iPhones are not nearly as popular here.  There’s an interesting report by Google/Admob at http://metrics.admob.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/AdMob-Mobile-Metrics-May-10.pdf if you’re interested in more details.

Summary – Is India a booming market with loads of potential in the internet marketplace? Yes. But it might take a little longer than expected before it fully expands across the country’s population.

How does it look today? Take a look at our India search market review (with downloadable PDF). Or view information about other countries in our series of international search market reviews. Thanks again to all those who commented and gave us feedback and help in 2010, Issue five of our series is set for release in early 2011.

Google’s “Search Funnels” reporting represent a massive step on in data visibility

June 3rd, 2010

Google recently rolled out a beta of a conversion funnel reporting system that allows AdWords users using Google Conversion Tracking pixels to track conversions to see beyond the last click. This allows us to improve our understanding of what the consumer journey within search looks like. We can see the average time lag between the last click and conversion, the number of clicks on our ads before someone converts, the ads and keywords that they are interacting with first, and the different keywords and ads they’re interacting with all the way to the last click.

This is pretty exciting. Previously, we could only get this level of understanding by implementing a costly consultancy project with floodlight tags, using DoubleClicks Click Path Analysis product or similar, or by engaging a search technology that includes path to conversion analysis as part of their pricing. OK, so Google’s Search Funnels tool only works for Google and not with Bing and Yahoo, and it doesn’t yet seem to be reporting on content network activity, but considering it’s free it’s a pretty big step on.

The implications for search advertisers, especially the smaller businesses who have previously run CPA focused activity within strict profitability targets, are signficiant. Being able to see which keywords don’t cost in on a CPA metric, but fuel cost efficient conversions on other keywords has huge implications for the volume of conversions you are able to drive, and will completely alter the way that we analyse success. We will now be able to analyse what each search term is contributing to the campaign as a whole, wheras before we could only see part of the story.

Looking at the data in some of our client accounts, we’re already seeing some interesting things. Some of the “keyword click paths” (this shows all of the keywords that a searcher has interacted with before converting) contain repeat searches for the same search term, up to 5 or 6 times before conversion. This clearly highlights the importance of an always on strategy, as if you’re not there for the last search your consumer will most likely end up somewhere else! Another example of something strange is that we’re frequently seeing some paths to conversion that start with a brand search, then converts on a generic search. This could be where above the line advertising is driving searches, and then people are then shopping around for a better offer and returning to the site on a generic term once they’ve done so. This highlights the importance of not only making sure you have full brand visibility when investing in other channels, but ensuring you have the required visiblity on generic terms.

We’re very excited about the potential to dramatically improve investment models using this data, and will be keeping our ears to the ground on what other practitioners are doing with the data. Not only are we excited about the potential it has for improving search performance, but it signals a step forward in the sharing of the rich data that search engines hold with marketeers. Data is the driver of insight and as such innovation – so the more steps search engines take in sharing this data with us, the more and more we’ll be able to do for clients.

Blog post by Graham Everitt, Search Consultant at Reform

Search and Social Media

December 3rd, 2009

There was a really interesting article in the Nov/Dec issue of B2B Marketing called “Search and social media go hand in hand” by Tom Chapman. It discusses the importance of tying up search and social media efforts. However, it got me thinking about how there are very few businesses doing this at the moment, and very few doing it well enough to get anywhere near maximising their performance in each channel.

Part of the problem is that search marketers have traditionally operated in silos, coming from agencies where IP and data can be jealously protected to ensure the agency’s own longevity on the business. As such, the methods used to identify what people are searching for and what sites are ranking on those searches are rarely shared, let alone fed into a social media strategy. Further to this, as most of industry’s knowledge of search is confined within the walls of agencies and the search engines themselves, the focus has been on using the available data solely for buying decisions. To drill into this information and use it as a way of understanding consumer behavior, and the view of a market sector that a consumer is presented when searching, requires a different mindset.

Another problem is the continuing focus on using search and social media for dealing with negativity. When most people hear “search” and “social media” together they tend to think of all of the negative comments that could be showing when people search for their brand. Then they set about figuring out how to knock them off the first page rankings. This is just one (and perhaps a short sighted) example of how search can work with social media.

Using search query volume data to inform social media content development, tracking trends and rising searches to allow you to analyse the effect of your social media strategies, analysing rankings to show you where there are gaps in rich content listings that you could target to drive traffic to your social content, are more positive examples. Optimising your social content is the next big step, ensuring that everything works in tandem with your SEO strategy. There are a whole host of things you can do to inform your social media strategies, to get even more value out of your investment, and to hone how your brand is presented to consumers.

The barriers that we face to having the channels working together in true synergy are compounded by the elevation of social media to the latest “big thing”. The fact is, it’s not so different from everything else we do; social content development decisions should be driven by the same data and thought processes as all other content.

In Digital, we tend to specialize in different channels and think of them independently. The consumer doesn’t see separate channels though, they have one all encompassing experience. Specialists from each channel need to rally together to pool their knowledge and work harder together to align their efforts, not say “oh yes, we can do that” when a client asks about a different channel if it’s not their core specialism. Communication, open mindedness, and a willing approach will help us get these channels working better together, helping us unlock the true value of both.