eMarketer projects that search marketing spend will grow by 14.9% in 2009 to $12.3 billion. With more ad dollars spent on search, expectations for performance increase, but getting personal can help. Personalized search has expanded over the past few years, and marketers ought to be capitalizing.
Personalized pages and search results now serve up videos, images, news links and more, but what may be relevant to one person may not matter to the next. Personalization, a growing priority for the engines, enables marketers to better understand users and create content to tailor search results based on the individuals’ preferences.
Many of the engines have caught on, launching personalized services that leverage their search technology to deliver exactly what the user has requested, personalized just for them. iGoogle, Yahoo!’s MyWeb and MSN’s my.live.com all offer some slightly different approaches, but each offers users the ability to create a self-designed, personalized page. This gives them access to information from across the Web where they can select and organize content like e-mail messages, stock quotes or local weather forecasts. Google took the effort one step further, launching its SearchWiki in November 2008, allowing users to customize their Google searches by re-ranking, deleting, adding and commenting on search results.
Marketers don’t have to rethink their entire marketing plan to succeed in personalized search, just effectively adjust to find their niche and create content and resources that individual users desire. After all, personalization revolves around users; so marketers who understand their customers will find greater success as these personalization efforts lead to more relevant results for users.
Marketers can target users based on their intent and present offerings where the user will most likely convert, but even though search engines can help identify user preferences, they still need to personalize their organic listings, ad creative and site content.
Ultimately, understanding how to personalize search marketing initiatives can improve efficiency and conversions to significantly boost revenue. Minimally, CMOs should ensure their marketing teams have considered the following ways to get more personal in search:
· Examine individual intent, consumer opinions, buying stages and lifestyle as sources for effective keywords
· Ensure that keywords, ad copy and landing pages match to boost quality scores, attract attention and communicate more relevant information
· Build content according to what users deem important
· Implement geotargeting efforts for multichannel and local campaigns
· Develop custom landing pages for natural search to target relevant content to specific people
Marketers that adjust their strategies for personalization will reap rewards by gaining a competitive edge, more effectively promoting their brands and services online, and discovering unprecedented user insights.
Michael Kahn ([email protected]) is senior vice president, marketing, at Performics.
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