Pay Per Click Advertising drives 6 times more offline sales than online sales – US Study Reveals

For every $1 in online sales generated from PPC advertising, $6 is generated from in-store sales.  This is according to US Retail Market Research Firm, Revtrax. RevTrax also revealed that 89% of conusmers pre-shop by conducting research online but less than 7% of sales take place online.  These statistics were based on a 2 year study conducted by RevTrax analysing the Impact of Online Advertising on In-Store Sales. While many commentators have previously spoken about the impact of PPC on offline sales; this study is the first time its impact has been measured on such a large scale.

Revtrax tracked in-store sales through use of printable coupons with a unique identifier. When users clicked on PPC ads they were brought through to a landing page that allowed them to print a coupon to be used in-store. Coupons used in-store were traced back to the keyword used during the online search.

What does this mean for Irish businesses? Firstly, businesses where possible should attempt to use Pay Per Click advertising to push sales offline and not just through e-commerce. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, this study truly dismisses the myth that you have to sell online in order to reap the benefits of Pay Per Click Advertising.

The biggest challenge in promoting offline sales through PPC has been tractability. The effects of PPC on offline sales have remained hidden to advertisers. This is beginning to improve with growth in Smartphone penetration. Google have recently made Google Check-in Offers available for Google+ users on Android devices. The feature allows Businesses with a Google Places Page to target mobile users by making offers to Google+ users checking in at their location. Mike Blumenthal recently wrote a Blog Post on how to setup Google Places Check-in offers. At the moment the feature is only available to US Advertisers.

Jason

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By: JasonKellyDate: 19.12.2011
Posted in Google Search, Google+ No Comments »

Redeveloped Google App points to big changes in Local Search

Google recently released an update for there Google App. The update introduces some new features for Google search on smart phones. We wanted to review some of these features as they promise to have an impact on the future of Local Search.

My Location:

This feature means that you no longer need to localise a search with a physical address. Once you would have to type ‘accountant dublin’, but now once you have typed ‘accountant’, you are presented with an option to ‘search for an “accountant” near me’. This feature uses your phones GPS to identify the nearest accountant based on you current location. From the tests we have done it is fairly accurate.

Google Suggest:

The suggest option is similar to Google suggest on your PC, but with one major difference. Rather than suggesting popular search queries, it suggests nearby shops and businesses. See the screen shot below for a ‘restaurants’ search, Google App suggested the Westin Dublin.

Search by Voice:

This clip explains the service well. In short, faster web search with fewer key strokes.

We have played with voice technology before and it was iffy at best, but Google really seem to have cracked this.

Google Goggles:

Again Googles short video, demonstrates this better than we can. Playing around with this service shows up its limitations, not that many everyday items are recognised. But visual search looks like it has a bright future.

The launch for this redeveloped app has been fairly low key. But this technology is likely to catch on on with lots of mobile apps that use the Google API.

Local Search is evolving. It is getting faster, easier and importantly more relevant. It promises to make all of our lives a little easier.

You can find out about all Google App features and see if they are available on your phone by following the link.

LSM

By: adminDate: 21.03.2011
Posted in Google Products, Google Search, Local Search No Comments »

How to Track Mobile Traffic in Google Analytics

We have noticed mobile traffic increase sharply over the last six months. Some of the sites we monitor now get 10% of their traffic from mobile devices. This might not sound like much, but this has increased from 3% only six months ago.

If this rate of growth continues mobile will be a significant part of web traffic for many Irish business by the end of the year (2011). It is worth noting that we are seeing higher mobile traffic to the websites of physical retailers . The trend suggests that people are using their mobile phones find phone numbers,  locations, opening hours etc of local retailers while on the move. The growth in traffic ties in with the explosion in sales of smart phones over the last six months.

Below we have taken an Google Analytics extract from an Irish retailer with a national presence. In addition to mobile accounting for 10% of traffic, there are some interesting findings. The bounce rate is higher and the pages per visit is lower.  People searching on mobile phones have less time and are more likely to have connection issues. Another fascinating insight is that the mobile searches peak at weekends, and reinforcing the suggestion that people are researching business details while ‘on the run’.

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All of the above highlights the importance of monitoring mobile traffic to your website. We have complied a quick guide on how to do this in Google Analytics

First of all log into Google Analytics.

Step 1: Go to the Advanced Segments section in the top right of the dashboard. When you click on All Visits to the side of advanced segments it will open the window below, displaying Default and Custom segments. To the left of the box screen shot there is a link called ‘Create a new advanced segment’. Click this link.

Step 2: This will bring you to the screen shot below. Navigate to Dimension in the left hand nav bar. Select visitors. Scroll down to mobile and click and drag the green mobile button across to the ‘dimension or metric’ box per the screen shot. Ensure that condition is set to ‘Matches Exactly’. In the value drop down select ‘Yes’. Name the segment Mobile and save.

Step 3: Return to the dashboard and the advanced segments (All Visits) section. Repeat the process, but this time make two changes. Set the value to ‘No’ and name that segment Non Mobile. Save the second segment. You will now have two custom segments called ‘mobile’ and ‘non mobile’. See the screen shot below.

Step 4: Select All Visits from the default and Mobile from the custom segments, as above. Click apply and you will have a traffic graph similar to the one at the start of the this post. You can also tick the non mobile segment and this will give you an additional filter.This can be useful if you want to exclude mobile traffic.

We would be interested to hear from other Irish retailers. Are you seeing similar trends in mobile traffic? It would be great to track mobile growth across different sectors.

Tracking the growth of mobile in 2011 will most likely reveal some interesting trends in mobile and local search in the Irish market.

The Local Search Team

By: adminDate: 22.02.2011
Posted in Google Search, Mobile News 1 Comment »

Google Instant

Google unveiled a new type of search yesterday, they are calling it Google Instant.

What makes this new and different from the usual Google search is that Google Instant produces results while you are typing. With every letter you type Google will refine the search and offer suggestions.

What was wrong with the old search you might ask? Well Google feel that their new Instant search will speed up the time we spend searching. They feel the less time we spend searching the better the experience. They plan to knock a whopping 2-5 seconds off the average search.

The service has been rolled out to users in the US, UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Russia. With the rest of us soon to follow.

This may have dramatic effects for search optimisation. Where once websites were optimised for keywords, they will now need to be optimised for letters.

Watch this space,

LSM

By: The Local Search Marketing TeamDate: 09.09.2010
Posted in Google Search No Comments »