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Hitwise Online Marketing Forum
Search Essentials for Brand Marketers - Revealing Consumer Insights
In this session, you will learn, from leaders in Search and brand marketing, like Hitwise, MSN, SEMPO, Performics and ClickZ:
Why Search provides an accurate measure of brand awareness and associations;
How to identify what consumers associate with your brand;
How to garner insight into your campaigns effectiveness - and brand spend;
How to identify if your competitors are benefiting from your online brand marketing efforts and what to do about it.
Join us to see Bill Tancer, GM, Global Research, Hitwise as he presents and moderates a panel discussion including:
James Colborn, Product Manager, Search Strategy, Microsoft
Cam Balzer, Director of Search Strategy, Performics
Dana Todd, President, SEMPO
Daniel Lizio-Katzen, EVP, Technology and Online Marketing, Spafinder.com
Rebecca Lieb, Executive Editor, ClickZ Network
Thursday, June 22, 2006
8:00 to 10:30
7:30 Full Breakfast
The Westin Times Square
270 W. 43rd Street
New York, NY 10036
Register here
One in Seven Online Searches Result in Competitors Site Visit
Hitwise Search Brand Management White Paper Provides Insights for Brand Marketers
Millions of dollars are spent each year on brand advertising and brand tracking, the shift to the Internet coupled with the growth in search has introduced a host of new challenges and opportunities. As the search engine marketing industry has grown there is little information that exists on the role of brand and search until now. Hitwise, the leading online competitive intelligence service, have released the Hitwise Search Brand Management White Paper that outlines best practices for monitoring brand traffic, protecting brands online, bidding on brands and online brand tracking.
The Hitwise Search Brand Management White Paper is based on an analysis done in February 2006 among 30 leading online brands in the Travel, Retail, and Business & Finance categories defining best practices for search engine brand management and tracking brand strength online. As today's users are increasingly searching by brand names, these results often end with a brand's competitors among the first sponsored results. One of the paper's key findings shows that an average of 85 percent of brand name searches resulted in a visit to one of the brand owner's websites. The remaining 15 percent of visits went to competitors, affiliates and price comparison websites, underscoring the importance of managing your brand through search online.
"The fact that one in seven brand searches does not end up at that brand's website demonstrates just how competitive it is to do business on the Internet," said LeeAnn Prescott, Senior Research Analyst at Hitwise and author of the Search Brand Management White Paper. "Understanding where traffic from brand related searches goes, and how competitors and affiliates are capitalizing on brand search terms will allow online marketers to optimize their campaigns, keyword lists, marketing promotions and affiliate relationships to gain a larger share of traffic. The Hitwise Search Brand Management White Paper answers how consumers are thinking, how they are shopping and let's you know who is benefiting from what brands.
Hitwise Research shows that Internet users are increasingly searching by brand - 75 of the top 100 search terms across all categories in February 2006 contained brand names, an increase of 17 percent versus February 2005. An example of how you can understand consumer awareness of your brand is through Hitwise Search Intelligence and Charting which allows marketers to directly compare online brand strength (measured by the share of Internet searches) to competitors, providing a measure of top-of-mind awareness of a brand. This is done through Search Term Share, which refers to the share of all internet searches for a particular keyword or search phrase. For example the chart above shows the weekly market share of all US internet searches in 2005 for three leading car brands, 'toyota', 'honda' and 'nissan'.
The chart illustrates that the brand names 'toyota' and 'honda' received a similar share of searches throughout the year and have similar seasonal trends. The term 'nissan' receives a smaller volume of searches and did not experience the same spikes in volume in late August - early September 2005. The spikes in traffic likely reflect promotions and other marketing activities.
Charting brand searches over time offers insights into whether searches for a brand are increasing or decreasing over time and at predictable times of year. The relative online strength of the key brand term compared to competitors and whether peaks in searches are often associated with promotions and campaigns.
If you would like to learn more about this topic, you can request a copy of the Hitwise Search Brand Management White Paper here.
News In Brief
Searches for ‘Cruise Reviews’ skyrocket 219 percent
People Aged 55 and Over Most Likely to Visit Cruise Sites
As the travel season begins to heat up, many Americans interested in taking cruises are utilizing the Internet for reviews of cruise vacations. According to Hitwise, the world's leading online competitive intelligence service, the share of US Internet searches for 'cruise reviews' was up 219 percent for week ending April 15, 2006 versus two weeks prior (week ending April 1, 2006).
During that same time period the share of searches for 'discount cruises' was up 143 percent following announcements of price cuts by most major cruise lines. Cruise Critic, the leading site that contains user generated cruise reviews, increased its market share of visits by 17 percent for the week ending April 15, 2006 versus the same week last year (week ending April 16, 2005)
The cruises category is highly competitive, with 26.8 percent of all visits to Travel - Cruises sites going to another cruise site for the week ending April 15, 2006. The Cruise Critic Message Board was the leading downstream site for all sites in the Hitwise Travel - Cruises category, accounting for 4.0 percent of the visits leaving Cruise sites, and indicating the research intensive nature of shopping for cruises. An additional 5.5 percent of visits leaving Cruise sites in that period went to search engines, further indicating that cruise shoppers conduct a significant amount of research online.
Long Session Times Indicate High Involvement
For the week ending April 15, 2006 the average session time for a site in the Travel - Cruises category was 10 minutes 3 seconds, 22 percent greater than the average session time for the Travel category as a whole, at 8 minutes 14 seconds. The Cruise Critic Message Board had an average session time of 20 minutes 44 seconds for that week, double the average session time for the Cruises category, indicating the high involvement of those reading and sharing opinions and experiences.
"Travelers are increasingly relying on the opinions of others to aid in planning their travels," said Bill Tancer, General Manager, Global Research for Hitwise. "Just as Trip Advisor has become one of the top sites in the Travel - Destinations & Accommodations category because of the popularity of its user generated reviews, potential cruise vacationers are searching for customer reviews and utilizing sites like Cruise Critic to aid in their travel planning."
Age 55 and up Frequent Cruise Sites
For the four weeks ending April 15, 2006, 34.1 percent of visitors to the Travel - Cruises category were over 55, compared to 18.8 percent share in the overall Travel category. Visitors to Cruise sites were twice as likely to reside in Florida as the average Internet user, with 12.4 percent of visitors coming from that state in the four weeks ending April 15, 2006. Other states highly represented by visitors to Cruise sites were Eastern Seaboard states like Rhode Island, Delaware, and Maryland.
Top 10 Cruise Sites by Market Share of Visits to Category Week Ending April 15, 2006
| Name | Domain | Market Share |
|---|
| 1. | Vacations To Go | www.vacationstogo.com | 19.05% |
| 2. | Carnival Cruise Lines | www.carnival.com | 13.15% |
| 3. | Royal Caribbean | www.royalcaribbean.com | 9.06% |
| 4. | Princess Cruises | www.princess.com | 4.68% |
| 5. | Cruise Critic Message Boards | messages.cruisecritic.com | 3.77% |
| 6. | Norwegian Cruise Line | www.ncl.com | 3.14% |
| 7. | 1-800-Cruises.com | www.1-800-cruises.com | 3.08% |
| 8. | Cruise Critic | www.cruisecritic.com | 3.01% |
| 9. | Travelzoo Cruises | cruises.travelzoo.com | 2.50% |
| 10. | Celebrity Cruises | www.celebrity.com | 2.46% |
To find more data and insights go to www.hitwise.com or weblogs.hitwise.com
Search Analysis – Search Term Analysis
Hitwise Search Intelligence data reveals the most popular search terms containing the term(s) 'stephen colbert' for the four weeks ending May 13, 2006. The results are ordered based on the volume of searches.
Top 10 most popular search terms containing the term(s) 'stephen colbert' - based on volume of searches - For four Weeks Ending 05/13/2006
| Search Term |
|---|
| 1. | stephen colbert |
| 2. | stephen colbert white house |
| 3. | stephen colbert video |
| 4. | "stephen colbert" |
| 5. | thank you stephen colbert |
| 6. | stephen colbert speech |
| 7. | stephen colbert correspondents dinner |
| 8. | stephen colbert transcript |
| 9. | stephen colbert white house video |
| 10. | stephen colbert quotes |
Fast Mover – Gas Price Alert
www.gaspricealert.com
Rank week ending - April 22 - 12,358
Rank week ending - April 29 - 2,060
Positions jumped - 10,298
As the summer months approach and gas prices fluctuate around the $3 a gallon mark, consumers have gone online to research where the lowest prices are in their area. The GasPriceAlert website provides up-to-date information on the lowest gas prices in a users area and emails them daily based on their chosen gas station brands and gas grades.
Hitwise data showed that www.gaspricealert.com experienced a dramatic increase in US market share of visits by 500 percent (week ending April 29, 2006 versus week ending April 22, 2006) as US Internet users went online to track down the gas stations with the lowest prices. The site climbed the ranks in the Hitwise 'Automotive' category to a rank of 72 (week ending April 29, 2006).
Category Spotlight: Lifestyle - House and Garden
The House and Garden category includes all home hardware and handyman websites, plus DIY guides and anything related to gardening, building, renovation or home decorating.
Case Study: Affiliates and Partnerships
A Fast Food Company
An online food delivery service, which provides customers with a variety of cuisine choices, found that although the site was attracting many visitors, sales were not increasing accordingly.
Using Hitwise 'Clickstream' data, the food delivery service found that it was losing 15% of its visits to a variety of competitive websites - specifically 10% to Pizza Hut.
Hitwise Search Terms data revealed that almost one third of the top keywords driving traffic to the Hitwise Food & Beverage category contained the term 'pizza'.
With these competitive and customer insights, the online food delivery service was able to:
- Make several content & programming changes to its website to satisfy customer demand;
- Accept coupons from competitors;
- Reduce customer churn to competitive sites by 50%
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About this Newsletter
This monthly email Newsletter is designed to provide Hitwise subscribers with analysis of new developments, industry trends and competitive activity. The powerful real-time web intelligence capabilities of Hitwise and a continual flow of additional research findings make this an indispensable business resource.
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Hitwise United States Newsletter - May 2006
Real-time competitive intelligence