December 08, 2014
Three things every retailer needs to know about search marketing
There is a lot more than click-through rate to understanding the impact of search.
How often a retailer appears on a search results page, the content presented
and other factors can have a big impact on where a shopper buys.
It’s no secret that search is an influential touchpoint in a consumer’s
purchase decision for almost any product. Search represents as much as 40% of
traffic referrals to online retailers, depending on the time of year and the
product being searched.
Yet despite the common understanding of search’s importance in the retail
industry, there is a still a lot unknown about how consumers interact with a
search results page beyond click-through rates.
The evolution of the search results page means that shoppers are presented
with an increasingly diverse number of ways to shop before ever arriving at an
online retailer, as the graphic below illustrates.
For retailers, this means increased competition in fighting for the same
shopper, and less visibility into the content that is most influential in the
shopper’s path to purchase.
For brands, the challenge is understanding how shoppers use search to find
products so that they can create an easy, consistent experience across
retailers.

Competition from online-only retailers heats up
U.S. consumers spend $20 billion annually on footwear, according to the NPD
group. The footwear industry is a fragmented market that is only getting more
splintered by the acceleration of e-commerce sales thanks to online-only
retailers like Zappos.com. Traditional brick and mortar retailers are fighting
for shopper attention in search, competing for space with online-only retailers
like Shoebuy and 6pm.
To dive deeper into this challenge, Millward Brown Digital conducted an
analysis of the search results listings that U.S. shoppers were exposed to while
conducting footwear-related searches in August 2014. Six of the top 10 retailers
most likely to appear on the search results page were online-only retailers.
This means that consumers are more likely to be exposed to online shoe
retailers through search than well-known department store retailers like
Nordstrom or Macy’s, underscoring how challenging e-commerce is becoming for
traditional retailers as competition heats up. Several of the industry’s largest
footwear players – Payless Shoes and DSW – are nowhere to be found in the top 10
most frequently appearing retailers.

Finally, search behavior suggests that there is a positive relationship
between the degree to which a footwear retailer appears in search results and
the likelihood that a footwear searcher will click on a search result. As
e-commerce increases and the influence of search grows, retailers and brands
need to have better visibility into the search results page from the perspective
of the shopper.

Looking Ahead: Three Things Every Retailer Needs to Understand about
Search
- Better understand the downstream impact of search exposure.Currently
much is known about the first action shoppers take after leaving a search
results page. More visibility is needed into the consumer journey following that
first click to better tie search investments to downstream impact – whether that
be increasing conversions, driving in-store purchase, or even decreasing
cross-shopping to competitor retailer.
- Understand the impact of paid search on retailer choice. Every
retailer knows the impact that an increase in paid search has on their own site
traffic. As search grows in influence, retailers need to understand the
competitive and industry-wide impact on retailer choice. For instance, do
consumers visit fewer retailers or eliminate particular retailers from their
consideration set because they were exposed to a paid search campaign?
- Understand what search listing content is most likely to drive
engagement. Multiple search listings for the same retailer often show up on
the same page. If you are a retailer with one listing while your competitor has
three listings, which listing is driving the most engagement for shoppers?
Identifying whether price, style, or search copy in a listing drive engagement
can provide some important context into what factor is most likely to drive an
online purchase.Differences in search listing content by retailer can also help
competitors better understand the reasons they might be attracting a different
type of shopper. Brands selling online through their retailer partners should
also spend time understanding the answers to these questions. The answers will
help brands and retailers alike continue to shape what category management looks
like in an e-commerce environment.
Author: Jason Caine, Director, Retail/CPG Practice, Millward
Brown Digital Published: internetretailer.com
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