13 Searches Lead Down

Frederick Marckini writes about some interesting stats published by comScore regarding the number and type of searches people conduct before making an online purchase. Some of the more interesting quotes:

* Searchers who ultimately purchased a product online conducted some 13 searches before ever making the purchase. This means that for every single converting search term, there were 12 prior nonconverting searches -- searches that today, most PPC search advertisers would never consider bidding on due to poor post-click conversion performance. The implication is nonconverting terms have a greater value than search marketers currently ascribe to them. * The majority of searchers in the study who ultimately purchased began by searching broader terms. Yet most search advertisers still believe they should primarily buy product-specific terms to reach buyers. * The study indicates we may also need to rethink our paid search time horizon. A significant increase in conversion rate was witnessed after a searcher had been investigating a product for over four weeks. According to Rinaldo, "It's a long buying cycle. If companies abandon a broad keyword prior to four weeks, they lose a quarter of their audience."

Certainly there is a lot to learn about search patterns and bidding strategies from these numbers. There should also be something to learn about web site design and the content / conversion rate abilities of these sites. People don't do 13 searches just because they're still doing research or can't make up their minds. They do 13 searches because the results they get don't satisfy them. Posted by Craig Danuloff at February 7, 2005 1:32 AM