Search Marketing Predictions 2011

Paid and Natural Search Predictions
Today’s Speakers:
Adam Bunn Hannah Kimuyu
Director of SEO Director of Paid Search

Earlier this year, Greenlight’s SEO and PPC teams shared their thoughts on what 2010 would deliver for search marketing.
How did they unfold?
What happened with Twitter and Google Integration, ‘Microhoo’, Google Audio Indexing and the expected changes to Google AdWords?
And what's in store for 2011...

Part 1 | 2010 Predictions Looking Back

Investment into “TwitFaceSpace” will continue to rise.
Google’s Twitter integration will change fundamentally.
Google factors the content of videos into page relevancy scores.
Internet use on mobile phones will accelerate and mobile search will take off.
Search will be a two horse race by the end of the year.
Google will find more ways to monetise the excess inventory in AdWords.
Winning the click will be more important than ever.
There will be increased spends on Google’s Contextual Network.
Latency becomes part of the Google algorithm.
Domain structure will play a bigger role for paid search.
What Did We Predict?

“ Investment into “TwitFaceSpace” will continue to rise.”
What did the headlines say?
‘ Social networks command 23% of all internet time..’
‘ Twitter’s ad model became a favourite for big brands in April 2010...’
‘ Google adds Facebook status updates to real-time search...’
‘ Bing, now with extra Facebook: See what your friends like and people search results...’
‘ Google to show Twitter ads in real-time search...’
Twitter, Facebook et al.

How did the social media networks evolve?
Facebook has over 27 million active users, with over 60% of the UK population now using Facebook regularly.
The Facebook Homepage alones see’s up to 13 millions users a day, providing a prime advertising space for brands.

Facebook has over 27 million active users, with over 60% of the UK population now using Facebook regularly.
The Facebook Homepage alone see’s up to 13 million users a day, providing a prime advertising space for brands.
Further to this, Facebook has extended its advertising opportunities, focusing
on more engaging formats that already have improved reach and conversion
for the majority of advertisers.

Both Google and Bing have integrated social media updates into their search functions.

Both Google and Bing have integrated social media updates into their search functions.
With Google already indexing Twitter and MySpace updates
in real-time search results by close of 2009,
Google had also added in Facebook status updates in real-time
search by the end of Feb 2010.

Twitter, Facebook et al. Although somewhat limited to organisations, businesses, celebrities and brands - due to the closer relationship between Microsoft’s Bing and Facebook.

Twitter, Facebook et al. Although somewhat limited to organisations, businesses, celebrities and brands - due to the closer relationship between Microsoft’s Bing and Facebook. This was then followed by a partnership between Yahoo! and Twitter which not only takes in search but also a deeper integration of micro-blogging service tools.

Twitter, Facebook et al. Although somewhat limited to organisations, businesses, celebrities and brands - due to the closer relationship between Microsoft’s Bing and Facebook. This was then followed by a partnership between Yahoo! and Twitter which not only takes in search but also a deeper, integration micro-blogging service tools. Quite recently, Google will now show Twitter ads in real-time search as well.

So has this lead to more investment into “TwitFaceSpace”
The simple answer – Yes.
The stats alone suggest that overall, Facebook’s advertising programme has seen a significant increase in the number of advertisers and the investments made.

Using Greenlight’s client base as an example, we’ve certainly doubled our investment into Facebook alone.

And will be investing into Twitter, LinkedIn and My Space advertising programmes.

And will be investing into Twitter, LinkedIn and My Space advertising programmes.
The evolution of social media advertising has delivered extensive reach , that can be targeted in a more sophisticated way than search - and in some cases, it has the ability to achieve branding, customer engagement and acquisition.

“ Google’s Twitter integration will change fundamentally.”
Google’s Twitter Integration

Google’s Twitter Integration

“ Google factors the content of videos into page relevancy scores.”
Google Audio Indexing

Google Audio Indexing

“ Internet use on mobile phones will accelerate and mobile search will take off.”
We seemed so sure when we made this prediction,
Furthermore, the sizable investments made by Google and Yahoo! suggested that Mobile would be a major player in the 2010 search arena. But has the mobile market really grown?
Mobile Search

We seemed so sure when we made this prediction,
Furthermore, the sizable investments made by Google and Yahoo! suggested that Mobile would be a major player in the 2010 search arena. But has the mobile market really grown?
The earlier part of the year certainly looked that way,
with growth increasing considerably month on month .
Mobile Search

2010 has delivered, as predicted:
more interest from both advertisers and users
better search integration, e.g. Contextual ads now feature on mobile
increased investments into mobile platforms by advertisers and brands
Mobile Search

One other way to look at this is by sector or vertical.
Largest sectors include: Retail, Entertainment, Media and Telecoms.
Mobile Search

Search now accounts for 54% (£20.2m) of all mobile ad spend
after a 41% year-on-year rise.
Mobile Search

IAB also predicts continued growth for the mobile channel over the next five years.
Mobile Search

IAB also predicts continued growth for the mobile channel over the next five years.
Suggesting it could reach £50 million ($77 million) in 2010 , and
an ambitious £285 million ($437 million) in 2014 in the UK alone.
Mobile Search

Focusing specially on the retail sector we’ve seen a massive investment from advertisers/brands into making mobile ‘work’.
Our observations of the year have so far concluded, that retailers have benefitted the most from mobile,
Mobile Search

With the ongoing developments with all Smart phones and not forgetting Apple’s iPhone, and their associated applications - the consumers’ intent to purchase is a lot easier now.
Mobile Search

With the ongoing developments with all Smart phones and not forgetting Apple’s iPhone, and their associated applications - the consumers’ intent to purchase is a lot easier now.
We’ve also seen certain markets excel a little more,
for example Italy, Spain, Sweden, Germany, UK, and the U.S.
Mobile Search

Females specifically are the leaders here...
‘ Women charge ahead in their use of the mobile Internet in their day-to-day lives
(particularly shopping)’ .
Mobile Search

Mobile Search
Women “want the entire mall” on their mobile (survey by miBuys)
Retail is top of the type of offers women are interesting in receiving on their mobile phones (53%) followed by concerts/events (21%), dining (16%) and cinema (7%).

Mobile Search
- The average female downloading content, using an Android device, downloads 21% more mobile content than the average man.

Mobile Search
- The average female downloading content, using an Android device, downloads 21% more mobile content than the average man.
- During April this year, women consumed twice the amount of mobile entertainment content as men- 4.5million downloads compared to 2.2million.

“ Search will be a two horse race by the end of the year.”
Search A Two Horse Race?

Search A Two Horse Race?

“ Google will find more ways to monetise the excess inventory in AdWords.”
Yes they did, and to name a few...
The acquisition of Double Click, transforming the Google Content Network into Google Display Network,
Product Listings,
Site Links,
Comparison Ads,
Instant Search,
Video Ads,
YouTube expansion.
AdWords Inventory

Focusing on Google’s Site Links
Initially introduced at the back end of 2009 and highlighted it as Google’s next chapter in search advertising, and a major focus for AdWords in 2010.
The aim being to deliver new ad models, with richer information, in the most useful format to the end user.
AdWords Inventory

Initially introduced at the back end of 2009 and highlighted it as Google’s next chapter in search advertising, and a major focus for AdWords in 2010.
The aim being to deliver new ad models, with richer information, in the most useful format to the end user .
Similar to extra links seen in natural listings, these allow for additional links to be placed within a sponsored ad, targeting pages deeper in a site, thus making the landing pages more relevant to the searcher/viewer.
In June, Google rolled out Ad Sitelinks to all advertisers.
AdWords Inventory

The benefits of this highly adopted ad extension included:
Greater visibility and brand defence, a chance to steer the click away from the competition,
AdWords Inventory

Increased landing relevancy and better visitor segmentation, key to gaining better quality traffic and improving conversion rates,
AdWords Inventory

Displaying special offers, additional promotional messaging,
AdWords Inventory

Ability to use symbols in Sitelinks,
AdWords Inventory

Higher click through rates.
AdWords Inventory

Higher click through rates.
Although viewed as one of the ways Google has found to monetise the excess inventory in AdWords – the addition of Site Links has been a positive addition to advertisers – contributing to increased returns from Paid Search.
AdWords Inventory

For more detailed information on this please see our White Paper on Google Site Links, which you can find on the Greenlight blog:
http://blog.greenlightsearch.com/greenlights_search_blog/2010/08/getting-the-most-out-of-ad-sitelinks.html
AdWords Inventory

“ Winning the click will be more important than ever.”
Winning The Click

Winning The Click

“ There will be increased spends on Google’s Contextual Network.”
‘ The acquisition of Double Click, transforming the Google Content Network into Google Display Network has pushed advertisers into investment more.’
So what’s changed?
Tagged as ‘smart targeting for powerful impressions’ Google’s acquisition of Double Click has brought display advertising (with a twist) to search.
Google Contextual Network

The Google Display Network (GDN) includes a collection of websites that have partnered with Google, YouTube, and specific Google properties that display AdWords ads.
Multiple targeting options,
Multiple ad formats including:

Multiple ads formats including: Text Ads .

Multiple ads formats including: Rich Media .

Multiple ads formats including: Video .

Google Contextual Network Contextual Targeting Placement Targeting Remarketing Use keywords and themes to find the best placements for your message across the Google Display Network. Put your message on the websites you think are the best match for your business. You can show your ad on specific web pages, online videos, games, RSS feeds, and mobile sites that you select. You can even block your ads from sites you don't think are relevant. Communicate with people who’ve previously visited key pages on your website as they browse the other web pages in the Google Display Network. This powerful technology lets you match the right people with highly relevant messages for effective results. Visually your ads are presented in both text and banner (ad creative) formats. Various Banner formats, Rich Media, Video Ads. Various banner formats, Rich Media.

We recently held a webinar about Google’s Display Network. The main headlines included:
- What is the Google Display Network (GDN)
- How to build a Display Campaign?
- Making the GDN deliver sales as well as brand awareness
- How to optimise a GDN campaign
- What the future looks like for the GDN
Also see a previous Greenlight webinar, which focused on the Google Display Network:
http://www.greenlightsearch.com/knowledge/webinars/17-google-display-network/

Highlights from the webinar included...
Google’s Display Network now reaches over 70% of unique users worldwide,
Targets users in more than 20 languages in over 100 countries,

It has its own Quality Score, relating mainly to the ‘relevancy’ of the ads/keywords to the placement (site).
The process for optimisation needs to be more specific for text based ads - fewer keywords,

It has its own Quality Score, relating mainly to the ‘relevancy’ of the ads/keywords to the placement (site).
The process for optimisation needs to be more specific for text based ads - fewer keywords,
Also think laterally for the placement targeting - this is where the behavioural and demographic targeting comes into play,
Introduction of ‘Category’ based targeting - again keep things focused but around themes, e.g. Technology customers.
Remarketing (also known as re-targeting) has been the saving grace - allowing you to re-target ‘lost’ customers.

But more importantly...Google’s Display Network is powerful, it performs well and delivers.

“ Latency becomes part of the Google algorithm.”
Site Speed

Site Speed “ ...today we’re including a new signal in our search ranking algorithms: site speed.”

“ Domain structure will play a bigger role for paid search.”
The outcome of this prediction hasn’t been as clear cut as the others.
Paid Search & Domain Structure

Quite recently it seems Google has started to penalise advertisers if they use sub-domains,
Meaning your Quality Score is affected negatively,
So on this point, it seems the domain structure has played somewhat a bigger role in paid search .

Quite recently it seems Google has started to penalise advertisers if they use sub-domains,
Meaning your Quality Score is effected negatively,
So on this point, it seems the domain structure has played somewhat a bigger role in paid search.
Outside of this, the lines are still a little blurred and this side of Google’s Quality Score has still got more room for further development,
… in other words we expect to see more from the Landing Page Quality (LPQ) score.

In addition to this, one quite noticeable trend for advertisers is adding the keyword or landing page category/product reference into the display URL.

In addition to this, one quite noticeable trend for advertisers is adding the keyword or landing page category/product reference into the display URL.
Everyone’s doing it and so far, the effort has proven:
Increases relevancy of expected landing page,
Google is reading this url, and therefore checking with the landing page thus adding as a ‘consideration’ when assigning quality score.

Investment into “TwitFaceSpace” will continue to rise .
Google’s Twitter integration will change fundamentally.
Google factors the content of videos into page relevancy scores.
Internet use on mobile phones will accelerate and mobile search will take off.
Search will be a two horse race by the end of the year.
Google will find more ways to monetise the excess inventory in AdWords.
Winning the click will be more important than ever.
There will be increased spends on Google’s Contextual Network.
Latency becomes part of the Google algorithm.
Domain structure will play a bigger role for paid search. and
How Did We Do?

Part 2 | Our Predictions for 2011

Google and Bing will offer app search before the year is out.
Display marketing will mirror much of what is search in practice.
What Do We Predict?

Google Vs. Bing hots up.
Y! “Rich ads in Search” proposition will take off, prompting Google to consider offering display style ads within the SERP.
What Do We Predict?

Too much content on the web.
There will be massive growth in the contextual base pay per click model - pulling away from the search engine domain to advertisers such as such as Ebay or Amazon.
What Do We Predict?

Instant Previews are here to stay, making 2011 “web design year”.
Pre-targeting, Re-targeting, Re-marketing - will be a prerequisite of any search strategy.
What Do We Predict?

Instant Previews are here to stay, making 2011 “web design year”.
Pre-targeting, Re-targeting, Re-marketing - will be a prerequisite of any search strategy.
QR codes will replace “search online” calls to action in ATL advertising.
Google comparison ads will be rolled out across all finance (and perhaps more) vertical keywords.
What Do We Predict?

We will be exploring these predictions in greater detail.
Watch out for an update on our blog: http://blog.greenlightsearch.com/
What Do We Predict?

Search Marketing Predictions 2011

by Greenlight

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