Search: Where to Next? from SES Chicago '09

(again sorry for not providing true “Live” coverage due to connection difficulties in session hall)

Simon Heseltine from AOL is moderating, and kicks off the panel with a quick introduction. Justin Merickel from Efficient Frontier is first up.

Two trends to look at: the changing SERP, and the Auction moving beyond search and driving search and display together.

Shows an example of search results for “Bottled Water” and how the images dominate the search result page. He is a little concerned about the consumer experience being put out by Google, and if it may e getting “too busy.” It does show that if you are not leveraging Google’s new products and CPA options, you are missing coverage on the search page. Also if you are not considering local, you are missing big coverage.

Information is coming into the search page in a different way, and actually adding more depth. He shows comparison rates found in the SERP for the term “mortgage” and states that it is critical for marketers to figure out how to gain coverage in Google on the newer offerings. Shows an example from Bing “flights to Vegas” and the “Cheap Tickets” box coming into the search page.

What is the critical element that marketers should be thinking about? What structured data do you have that can help drive additional results within SERPs. Look at all your data such as local business, product extensions, comparisons to use. Benefits are also for SEM in creating long tail automation, enabling creatives to be more specific. This automates a significant manual efforts. Structured data and other feed-like spreadsheets are becoming more important to leverage for all these opportunities.

Shows how Zappos does for term “Asics running shoes” and that they dominate with a number of results above the fold at Google. He showed 6 individual listings from Zappos above the fold…not sure if this is an optimal user experience, but still something to consider. He shows an example of the feed spreadsheet they optimize and structure to feed to the engines.

Creative management: you have to think about how to manage the new sets of structured data. How to map to engines? How to develop feeds? How to manage ad groups? How to push to SEs via API? You need to update creative based on feed updates, to make sure everything matches (price change, out of stock, etc).

Trend #2: is Display Advertising now more “search-like?” The rapid expansion of auction based access to inventory, including access to Exchanges (Right Meida, AdECN, etc), Yield Optimizers (Rubicon project, AdMeld, etc), and Networks (ie Fox). Access to targeting data decoupled from media inventory. This is a key differentiation from how it used to be. Now can buy this decoupled from Yahoo for example without having to buy the inventory. Then can use this data to properly target. In market data like Blue Kai, Exelate. Online behavior data from Quantcast, AlmondNet; offline is online: prism segments, IXI Active Traders.

They estimate auction is going to expand greatly via exchanges. Ends with a quote from ComScore: When exposed to both PPC and display ads, consumers were found to be 2X likely to transact. Their own data backs that up, and showed a 80% conversion lift in retargeting over what SEM did individually. Also showed 224% lift using non-SEM and retargeting together. To get the “search like” intent, you have to retarget, and find and use third party data to do it effectively.

Next up is Eli Goodman from ComScore. He introduces their panel methodology and their role in the industry. Will talk about three things: Branding, In-Text Search, and Social Search.

First he talks about the importance of branding. You always want to be on the short list for the consumer. How big is the advertising market? DR $68B versus $118B fro Branding. Online as a percent of total is only 5% fro branding and higher for DR. He feels this is going to grow tremendously. Since Google has heavily invested in universal search, the branding opportunities for marketers has increased. As organic results become richer, sponsored results must keep up – expect innovations.

The solution is to encourage advertisers to think of search as the traffic driver to the brand mechanism, not just the brand. Think about “assistive terms” related to your brand. For example Kraft should focus on recipes, since you don’t buy Mac and Cheese online. Shows how things can be better, for example GE has been focusing on clean energy, but none of their pages rank highly for this term in the SERPs. Very few people search for “Ecomagination,” but focusing the content on what people are searching, such as “energy saving,” “energy star appliances” “energy saving tips.” Each of these ads up to huge amount fo searches, but no content is available at GE to rank for them.

In-Text searching. He describes the idea behind the user navigating the internet either at search engines or consuming content. This mixes content consumption with navigating/search possibilities. Is this a richer experience? Can people then get content while higher up in funnel? These questions need to be considered. How personalized will it get? The values of in-txt include that they can be informative, useful, and/or entertaining. He shows how if you hover over a word, instead of being taken directly to a link, you get served a relevant pop-over with a link to the result. In short, more useful content increases user engagement. As functionality increases, so does click-through-rate.

Social Search: alternative search properties (Facebook, other social media outlets) show strong YOY search growth from September 2008 (except for MySpace). Social Search is the next frontier, thus social search results need to become more relevant. Think about how you would trust some friends for some recommendations and others for other types. If you could somehow “tag” your friends to tell the social community system who you trust for what, then this would be far more useful.

He talks about good SEM opportunities that exist with YouTube and other social sites. A search for “shoes” at YouTube has #4 listing for “walktallshoes,” which would be unlikely exposure for them at that level for such a keyword in the big search engines. For “women’s shoes,” no videos returned…this is an opportunity. He sees all these types of search options as becoming a new way for future searchers to get information.

Next up is Doug McMillen for Bing. He will be mostly talking about Mobile. Shows some of the features/functionality for the upcoming Bing mobile application updates. He shows some data which shows the Broadband Penetration growth rate from 2000 to 2008, and the projected increases beyond. Mobile broadband users will reach 30% penetration in 2010. Then shows Data usage in US only via Mobile Broadband access, and its similar growth rate. He says you should think about what you were doing in 2000 when preparing for Broadband, when you are planning for Mobile.

Some things to think about: people making typos while searching while driving, broader searches since they don’t want to type as much, and other considerations. The good thing is that mobile inventory is much cheaper for these broad terms. Mobile search is the largest growth rate of all thing people uses mobile devices for. The total number of smart phones is increasing dramatically. GPS-based targeting is far more personal than on PC. Not seeing growth in use of cell phones, but growth into the smart phone market. This is what is causing the increase in mobile search volume.

In 2008 5.2M searchers using mobile devises, growing to 56.2M in 2013 as projected. Search will continue to get more of a lion’s share of the budget, especially as it becomes more measurable in the mobile environment. He then shows the current relationship they have in place with Verizon, and demonstrates Microsoft’s commitment to Mobile. They do also have a unique audience that is the Verizon user base that the other publishers do not have.

It is easy to add a customized search package to your Mobile search campaign with Bing. Now is the opportunity to get in, get learning, and get testing. He feels there is plenty of opportunity to grab a large portion of the market share. Another option is the click-to-call potential, which is available on a Cost-per-call basis. The system generates a unique 800 number so you can track. Also low-priced current way to increase calls to call center. They also just launched the “Microsoft Mobile Marketplaces,” where they are in essence buying a bunch of display inventory through their display network. You can then bid on this through AdCenter.

Key takeaways: growth rates are big. You can extend your reach by adding mobile to current campaigns. Seeing two-three times higher CTR in Mobile, and have Click-to-Call available.