Site search testing pays off for e-commerce sites
E-commerce sites are getting big payback from testing different ways to present internal search results, says marketing firm MarketingSherpa Inc. 46% of marketers surveyed in January said tweaking internal search was very effective, compared with 3% who said it was not.
Typical tests include how many search results are presented, and whether there are images with all or some of the results, says Stefan Tornquist, research director at MarketingSherpa, who presented the results this week at a conference sponsored by e-commerce software firm MarketLive Inc. Tornquist says getting site search right is important as about half of consumers use the search function on e-commerce sites as opposed to clicking on categories or products on the web page.
Marketers also report value in testing other site features. For instance, 57% say testing shopping cart design and function is very effective, versus 11% who say it is not effective. But Tornquist says the percentage of marketers finding value in site search testing is so high because few of them were testing internal search as recently as 18 months ago. “There’s more open green in front of the newer tests,” he says.
Tornquist also reported on consumer research showing 54% very often or always read transactional e-mails that provide receipts or shipping information, while only 21% are likely to read all opt-in e-mail. He says those results make it inviting for marketers to include ads in those transactional e-mails, but that they must be careful not to annoy the customer.
“This is by definition a paying customer and you need to be very gentle in the way you bring marketing to this medium,” he says. “And if you’re going to sell anything, it needs to be relevant.”
A good example, he says, is e-mail from Apple’s iTunes that includes three small ads for items bought by consumers who bought the same item for which the consumer is receiving an e-mail receipt. “This was in the sweet spot between enough marketing engagement that people would notice it and respond to it, but not so much that they would have a very strong negative reaction,” he says.
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