How to avoid online customers who are Just Browsing
Filed under: Pay-per-click advertising, SEM on Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 by clicksharpmarketing | No CommentsGoogle will now start tracking several search queries in a row, to compare the ultimate commercial behavior of the user. Attention business owners: warming all your leads en masse is cause for a celebration!
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Google’s behavioral search engine technology continues to help business owners collect money. (Photo by metrix_feet) |
Not long ago, we compared transactional and informational search queries, subtly lamenting the fact that in the advanced consumer society of 2008, business owners still are faced with the reality that most search queries are performed without any commercial intent.
Then last week, we found out something new from a Search Engine Land post entitled “Google Looking At Multiple Previous Queries To Tailor Search Ads”. Google, with its advanced capabilities for personalized search, is testing serial user queries alongside singular queries (Google has even confirmed this). In other words, a series of search queries which indicates a trend toward a final sale might serve up an entirely different ad, compared to a series of queries which looks like mere research.
Consider the following example of two individuals researching rental properties in New York, and the series of Google searches they conduct:
| User 1 | User 2 |
| apartments in manhattan | apartments in manhattan |
| west village townhouse | apartments in brooklyn |
| perry street townhouse | 3 bedroom house westchester |
With Google’s new approach to serial search behavior, ads may be served differently to cater to the nuances of each user’s intentions.
User 1 has a very clear idea of what she is looking for: a townhouse on Perry Street in the West Village neighborhood of Manhattan. Google now can serve ads for a boutique brokerage focused on this area of the city, knowing that it will be a targeted solution.
User 2 is not as clear on what he wants. Maybe Manhattan, maybe Brooklyn, maybe something all together different in a house up in the suburbs. He’s not likely to have a fruitful discussion with a boutique brokerage specialized in West Village properties, and this brokerage is unlikely to be happy to have spent money on a cold lead. Google would be better off directing this user to more generalist resources, including larger real estate firms with a presence both in the city and surrounding suburbs.
Notice a familiar pattern? By leveraging search behavior, Google improves its already highly-accurate targeting capabilities, making the business owner’s ad more likely to inspire transactional behavior in the form of sales. Net result? A win-win solution for consumers and advertisers.
Paul Burani
Clicksharp Marketing
New York, NY
