Retailers know that when consumers buy bigger-ticket items, it isn’t typically a snap decision but instead represents the end of a longer buying cycle. Now, they’re starting to put that knowledge to work in paid search strategies online, maintaining different keyword terms to reach consumers in all three stages of the cycle: research, shopping and the actual purchase.
“In the past year our merchants have really broadened the type of terms they are using in their search marketing,” says Overture Service’s Inc. Diane Rinaldo, director of strategic alliances. Merchants are discovering that while some terms may have a lower conversion rate, they are critical to maintaining mind share among consumers in a competitive landscape, she says.
Take a cutting edge technology like plasma TVs. “Can a major consumer electronics merchant not appear in a search against plasma TV? Even though that is not likely to convert especially well, this searcher is clearly looking for information, most likely with the ultimate goal of making a purchase,” Rinaldo says. For that reason, appearing in a search for “plasma TV" becomes important to retailers seeking to establish market share, she says.
By the same token, bidding on a term like “DVD player” is important for a merchant because the term is general enough to indicate that the searcher is in the learning stage about the product, Rinaldo says. “Appearing against this term is going to give the merchant the opportunity to inform the consumer’s decision, and a greater chance to be the merchant of choice when the consumer is ready to buy,” she says. But when consumers are actually ready to make the purchase, their search may be against a term such as “Sony progressive scan DVD player,” so specific keywords are important to closing the sale as well.
Rinaldo notes that online merchants are seeking to balance keyword spending with the right mix of “head" words–general, competitive terms that get higher bids from retailers–with “tail” words–more specific, but less-searched and fetching lower bids. Rinaldo says Overture will continue researching how important it is to the marketer—in terms of an eventual sale—to appear early in the buying cycle against searches for those broader terms that don't immediately convert, in addition to appearing against the more specific terms searched for later in the buying cycle, which are more likely to immediately convert. “Our goal is to make it easier for everybody to manage their search account and also to make it smarter,” she says.
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