Search Engine Marketing

This year, many marketers' lead prospecting aims are focused primarily on finding new customers, while relatively few are looking only to retain current or reactivate former customers, according to Chief Marketer's 2013 Prospecting Survey [download page]. Marketers are ramping up their use of prospecting tools across the board, and while email remains the most common prospecting channel (86.7% using this year), some of the biggest changes are reserved for content marketing, retargeted ads, and website registration/opt-in. Read more »

Online ad spending around the world is projected to grow by 13.4% to reach $113.6 billion this year, according to a revised forecast issued by MAGNA GLOBAL that takes a more bullish view of online spending this year than its previous forecast. Another new forecast, from ZenithOptimedia, projects a 15% annual increase in online spending between this year and 2015. Both groups see strong growth for social and mobile advertising around the world. Read more »

Around the world, consumers and marketers alike believe that traditional media such as newspapers and TV are better advertising sources than digital platforms such as websites, social media pages and blogs, finds Adobe in new data from its "Click Here: The State of Online Advertising" report. The new data builds on previous research conducted within the US (results covered here), by expanding into the UK, Japan, Australia, Germany, France, and South Korea and offering a global average from all the countries. But while consumers and marketers are in agreement that traditional media sources are better for advertising and more credible sources of information, consumers tended to rate traditional media higher, while marketers were comparably more favorable to digital sources. Read more »

Compete and GroupM have released a new report that analyzes more than 168,000 purchases of consumer electronics in which the consumer used digital media somewhere along their purchase path. The study, revealing that digital media and advertising heavily influenced almost half of all purchases, identifies 6 types of digital shopper. The researchers argue that purchase journeys are more influenced by behavioral factors than demographics, as each shopper segment sports "remarkably" similar demographics. Read more »

ZenithOptimedia has released a list of the largest media companies around the world, ranked by media revenue, which it describes as "all revenues deriving from businesses that support advertising, not just the advertising revenue itself." While only 4 online media owners made the top 30 list, it's important to note - as the researchers do - that the figures pertain to the 2011 financial year, the most recent one that could be used for consistency's sake. Since then, online advertising has been growing by leaps and bounds. And yet, even in 2011, one digital company ruled them all: Google. Read more »

79% of smartphone owners qualify as "smartphone shoppers," says Google in new study results, using their devices to assist with shopping at least once a month. 84% of these smartphone shoppers use their devices to help them while they're in a store, equating to about 2 in 3 smartphone owners overall using their devices in-store. The most common way these consumers go about their research is through search, per the study, with store and brand websites less popular. That pattern also applies when smartphone owners compare prices, discover promotional offers, and find out where products are sold Read more »

75% of ad agencies responding to a BrightRoll survey believe that video is equally or more effective than TV, and that's up from 64% who believed that to be the case in last year's survey, according to a new BrightRoll report [download page]. Even more respondents (91%) believe that digital video measures up well with display, although they're less convinced about its effectiveness compared to social media (68%), search (52%) and direct response (45%). The most important aspect of video advertising to clients is its targeting capabilities, according to 45% of respondents, with reach (27%) also valuable. Read more »

Perhaps due to the growing influence of social shares on search rankings, local SEOs are increasingly seeing social media as an effective marketing channel for local businesses, according to results from a BrightLocal industry survey. More than 8 in 10 respondents believe that social either works well for certain business types (57%) or that it is very powerful (25%), up from 76% last year, while fewer than 1 in 10 are of the opinion that it's over-hyped. When it comes to generating leads customers for clients, though, SEOs are biased towards search, with 82% saying that "general search" is one of their top-3 most effective online channels. Read more »

Talking to people works, according to results from Ifbyphone's "State of Marketing Measurement: Survey Report" [download page]. Asked to rate various marketing tools for their effectiveness in generating sales leads, respondents ranked inbound phone calls highest, with a rating average of 3.4 on an 8-point scale (where 1 represents the highest potential). In-person visits were virtually on par with inbound phone calls, with a rating average of 3.48. Read more »

6 in 10 search marketers believe that it will be either much more (27%) or more (36%) important to rank in global search engines this year compared to last, according to results from BrightEdge's "2013 Search Marketer Survey" [download page]. A key aspect of reaching consumers around the world involves getting to the Chinese customer, and 41% of respondents believe it will be more important to rank in Baidu this year, versus about 1 in 10 who see this being less important. A recent report from Covario found that Baidu accounted for 1 in 4 global paid search clicks in Q1. Read more »