DIVE SEARCH. Search remains an essential component of every marketer’s arsenal, yet in China there is little understanding of the practice beyond spends, keywords and bidding. OMD’s DIVE SEARCH delves deeply into consumer search behaviors and how search advertising influences their purchase decisions.

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Source: CNNIC--The 40th China Statistical Report on Internet Development
Used by
81%of internet users
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Source: CNNIC--The 40th China Statistical Report on Internet Development
2nd
most used internet
application after
instant messaging
Source: CNNIC--The 40th China Statistical Report on Internet Development4

5. 25.5
34.5
53.6
70.6
79.0
96.3
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017e
AD SPENDING ACROSS ALL DIGITAL CHANNELS (2012-2017E)
E-Commerce Search Portal OTV Verticals Classifields Social Network Others
Billions RMB’
25% of digital spend is used on search
Billions RMB’
Source: iResearch 2017.05
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6. What we currently discuss about search
Spends
Keywords
Bidding
They are
MACHINE-BASED
AND AGGREGATED
Dive Search will uncover
Consumer search behavior
Search advertising influence
New search tech adoption
This will help us
rediscover search from a
CONSUMER
PERSPECTIVE
6

7. QUESTIONS
How many times
do people search
per day?
What are they
searching for?
How many pages do
they go through?
How does search
influence their
purchase decision?
What do they
think of search
advertising?
Do they use voice
and image search?
WE WANT TO ANSWER
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8. PROJECT DESIGN
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THE TWO STAGES
WERE DONE
SEQUENTIALLY
Based on insights from the tracking
phase a deep dive survey looking into
search behavior and category context
was sent to participants
Participants were purchasers and
intenders of Automobile / Travel /
Skincare categories
We placed tracking software to track all
search queries on participants’mobiles
and laptops/desktops
Searches on all platforms were tracked
including search engines, social media,
video and e-commerce platforms
STAGE 1
TRACKING SEARCH BEHAVIOR
STAGE 2
CONSUMER FEEDBACK

9. SCALE OF THE PROJECT
Tracking Survey
• 150 people across 4 tiers
• 2 weeks of cross device monitoring
• 13,355 search strings on 34 topics
• 165 platforms including traditional search
engines, e-Commerce, verticals, and video sites
• 750 category users of automobile,
travel, and skincare
• Tier 1- 4 coverage
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10. average number of
searches per day
0
5
10
15
20
25
0 100 200 300 400 500
No. of
people
No. of searches
over two weeks
Less Search More Search
5
10

11. Search peaks during
working hours
and evenings
11
Early morning Commuting-Morning Working AM Lunch Break Working PM Commuting-Off work Dinner/Wind Down Before bedtime Bedtime

12. 88
49
46
38
18
15
7
70
10
9
6
3
1
1
0 20 40 60 80 100
Baidu
360
Sogou
Google
Bing
Yahoo
Shenma
Used
Most often used
%
BAIDU
dominates amongst
search engines
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13. 9%
1%
1%
0%
85%
2% 2%
SHARE OF SEARCH PLATFORM
E-commerce
Video sites
Life convenience
News/Portal
Search Engine
Social Media
Verticals
Search happens beyond
search engines
E-commerce is quickly becoming the
second battle field for search
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SEARCH
REMAINS A PULL
MEDIA

15. Basic Life
Necessities
Variety shows/Movies
Study/Education
Online services
Healthcare
Career
Digital 3C
Automobile
Shopping
Celebrity
Sports
History/Literature
Finance
Entertainment
Science and technology
Game
Journalism
Travel
Clothing and fashion
Social websites
Food
Skin care
Other
Out of 13,355 search strings, product
and service related searches only make
up 19% of total search
Majority of the searches are about
basic life necessities
Search is huge,
but product related search is only a small subset
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16. TRAVEL
(212 strings)
AUTO
(416 strings)
SKINCARE
(103 strings)
Searchers already have brand/product name in mind
when they search
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17. TRAVEL
AUTO
SKINCARE
116 96
218 198
61 42
31
27
27
34
7
No. of people
No. of search
3.7 3.5 8.1 5.8 4.7 6
Average Searches
per person
The less they know
the more they search
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SEARCH IS A MISSION
DETERMINANT JOURNEY

19. 90% of searchers go
beyond the first page
The first page only 10%
2 pages 47%
3 pages or more 27%
All pages 16%
Pages read when searching
On average,
consumers go through 2.49
pages per search
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20. 20
Information is found
Stop
searching
Continue searching on the
same search engine
Continue to search on different
search engine or platform
What happens when consumers find information they want?
17% 71% 12%
Information is not found
Stop
searching
Continue searching on the
same search engine
Continue to search on different
search engine or platform
1% 73% 26%
Searchers are hungry for
more information

21. are loyal single search engine usersuse more than one search engine
80％ 20％
Going beyond one search engine
is ingrained behavior
21

22. 99.2%
8.2
7.91
7.99
8.05
8.08
8.21
8.4
8.42
Sogou
Yahoo
360
Bing
Google
Shenma
Baidu
Trust Rating
0.8%
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Using multiple search engines
isn’t because of a lack of trust
22

23. 47%56%70%I don’t want to
MISS OUT
SOME INFORMATION
even if I am satisfied
Each search engine meets a
DIFFERENT NEED
I have
The search engines were
INSTALLED BY DEFAULT
on my device,
I didn’t choose
16%I don’t always have a
VPN to access my
favorite search engine
14%I want to COMPARE,
I DON’T RELY
on one search engine, I
don’t trust
9%I search in different
LANGUAGES
For most,
a single engine doesn’t fulfil their needs
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24. Over 80% of other search
engine users also use Baidu.
The top two search engines
for Baidu users are 360
(50%) and Sogou (46%).
BAIDU GOOGLE SOGOU YAHOO BING 360 SHENMA
BAIDU 100% 88% 87% 85% 88% 89% 83%
GOOGLE 38% 100% 42% 65% 56% 42% 68%
SOGOU 46% 51% 100% 68% 53% 50% 75%
YAHOO 15% 26% 22% 100% 32% 19% 45%
BING 18% 26% 21% 38% 100% 24% 60%
360 50% 55% 54% 61% 65% 100% 83%
SHENMA 7% 13% 12% 21% 24% 12% 100%
BAIDU
is highly duplicated with other search engines
24
PRIMARY SEARCH ENGINE
SECONDARYSEARCHENGINE

25. Significantly higher vs. average
Significantly lower vs. average
Has helpful OPTIONS TO BROADEN OR TIGHTEN a search 56 50 49 59 45 50 49
Has an EASY TO READ INTERFACE 50 51 45 43 45 54 55
Gives me RELEVANT SEARCH RESULTS 68 60 62 62 60 58 61
Is good for SHOPPING 34 33 32 29 28 35 47
Provides VARIOUS SEARCH OPTIONS (E.g. picture or voice) 61 54 44 57 52 36 49
Is good for WORKING/STUDYING 47 35 45 51 40 42 47
Has EMBEDDED SERVICES 35 37 32 36 42 42 49
Doesn’t SPAM WITH ADS 12 16 16 16 27 13 29
Average 45 42 41 44 42 41 48
BAIDU GOOGLESOGOU YAHOOBING360
Different search engines serve different needs
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SHENMA

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SEARCH MISSION
DEFINES DEVICE USAGE

27. More people use mobiles to search
0 20 40 60 80 100
Used the most often for search Used the most often in general Owned
%
MOBILE
PC/LAPTOP
TABLET
27

28. 8AM – 12PM
12PM – 5PM
5PM –10PM
10PM –7AM
Device preference depends on time of the day
Mobiles are the preferred device for morning and
evening, while PCs are preferred during the day
PC Mobile
24%
26%
34%
31%
28%
23%
13%
20%
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29. Mobiles are used for its availability and PCs for viewability
41.5%
46.4%
50.1%
61.4%
70.8%
50.5%
46.9%
44.1%
30.3%
22.4%
8.0%
6.7%
5.7%
8.3%
6.7%
The screen size is suitable for search
The device allows easy inputting
It is my favorite device in general
It is the first available device when I need to search
The device allows search on-the-go
Mobile PC Tablet
29

30. 79%
77%
67%
45%
16%
14%
5%
21%
23%
33%
55%
84%
86%
95%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
E-Commerce
Search Engine
Entertainment
Verticals
Social Media
News/Portal
Life convenience
SHARE OF SEARCH ON DIFFERENT DEVICE AMONG DIFFERENT PLATFORMS
PC Mobile
Consumers use PC to search when the task is complicated
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31. OVERALL
AUTO
TRAVEL
SKINCARE
38.8％
INDEX 95
6.8％
INDEX 97
49.9％
INDEX 96
42.5％
INDEX 103
48.1％
INDEX 93
6.6％
INDEX 93
54.4％
INDEX 105
45.3％
INDEX 110
7.6％
INDEX 107
51.8％ 41.1% 7.1%
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Searches in different categories also influence device usage

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SEARCH
ADVERTISING WORKS

33. 32%
36%
36%
64%
61%
57%
4%
3%
7%
1%
0%
0%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
AUTO
TRAVEL
SKINCARE
IMPACT ON DECISION
Very influenced Quite influenced Not quite influenced Not influenced at all
Search makes a big impact on purchase decisions
33

34. Brandzone No Brandzone Brandzone No Brandzone Brandzone No Brandzone
56% 41% 37% 60% 52% 41%
63% 35% 49% 46% 58% 38%
64% 29% 43% 49% 52% 40%
69% 28% 41% 56% 58% 36%
More Useful
AUTO
More Complete
Information offered
More
Trustworthy/Reliable
More Attractive
TRAVEL SKINCARE
Brandzone works but not for the travel category
34

35. 0%
2%
18%
40%
83%
1%
5%
23%
39%
80%
0%
0%
28%
50%
82%
I have never seen these links
I never click on the link
I click on the link and eventually buy the
product
I click on the link to seek promotions
I click on the link to get information
SKINCARE
TRAVEL
AUTO
I click on the link and eventually buy
the product
People are looking for information through promotional links
35

36. 0 20 40 60 80
Female
Male
Is the most useful
Is the most
trustworthy/reliable
Is the most attractive
Gives you the most
complete information
％
Brandzones have a strong influence on
females searching in the auto category
36

37. 0 50 100
Post 90s Post 80s Post 70s
％
I never click
on the link
I click on the link and
eventually buy the product
I click on the link to seek
promotions
I click on the link to get
information
Promotional links only appeal
to older generations in travel category
37

38. 0 50 100
Female Male
I never click
on the link
I click on the link and
eventually buy the product
I click on the link to seek
promotions
I click on the link to get
information
％
Males are more influenced by
promotional links when searching
for skincare
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NEW TECH
ADOPTION IS DRIVEN
BY CONVENIENCE

40. Often use Sometimes use Never use
AUTO
COMPLETE
Auto-complete often dictates
search queries
40

41. 32%
40%
45%
54%
50%
48%
42%
41%
14%
10%
11%
5%
4%
2%
2%
1%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Suggestions are relevant and accurate
Gives me ideas and inspirations
Helps to spell some words/names I'm unsure about
Helps to save time/be faster
ATTITUDES TOWARDS AUTO-COMPLETE
Completely Agree Somewhat agree Neutral Disagree
Searchers use auto-complete to
save time
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42. FREQUENT
USERS
IMAGE
ALL USERS
AWARE
TRIED
FREQUENT
USERS
ALL USERS
AWARE
TRIED
FREQUENT
USERS
85%
69%
24%
76%
65%
13%
VOICE
Most people are aware of new search
technology but it is not the first thing they use
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43. 3%
11%
18%
26%
28%
TOP 5 OCCASIONS FOR USAGE
When characters are too
long to type
When I am unsure about the
spelling
When I am too lazy/tired/busy
to type
When I am outside and it's
not convenient to type
When I am walking
Helps me to be more
precise
When I am looking for
something in front of me
When I am looking for
something very specific
When I do not know the
name or how to call
something
When I am unsure about
the spelling
4%
10%
12%
22%
30%
Voice facilitated search used for convenience
while image search is used for specificity
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44. 30.7%
35.2%
34.1%
Post 90s Post 80s Post 70s
31.9%
34.6%
33.5%
Post 90s Post 80s Post 70s
IMAGEVOICE
Older generations use
new technologies more often
44

45. SUMMARY

46. Mobile search is exceeding that of PC;
consumer switch devices based on
different life situation
Search is big,
but product related search is a
small subset
When consumers search, they
already have a brand or product
name in mind
Consumers are information
hungry and willing to go beyond
one page and one search engine
Brandzone and promotion links do
deliver positive results for high
involvement categories
New search technology adoption is
driven by convenience
46

47. IMPLICATIONS

48. Brand and product names are the primary
keywords for search campaign, general
category keywords are supplemental
Search cannot serve as an always-on
mass awareness builder, but should be
utilized as an always-on information
source for consumers
Creating information rich landing pages
for consumers will help close the deal
Brands should plan search campaign
across multiple search engines and
across multiple devices
Brand should use SEO to increase its
exposure through auto complete
There is opportunity for publisher and
advertiser to engage the older generation
through picture search
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50. CONTACT
Bhasker.Jaiswal@omd.com
Jeanette.Phang@omd.com
Rachel.Fan@omd.com