5 Major Trends and Innovations in Search Marketing

Online search has been among us for almost a decade so that today we no longer need extensive details or granular explanations in order to find a product/service, an address, any past or present character, just anything really - since we simply "google it!".
Search knows no boundaries, so that users are facing today an overwhelming plethora of online offers (both "sponsored" and organic ones: i.e. PPC and SEO). According to Marin newest report on "Engaging users through enhanced media" there's a number of market trends that advertisers should be aware of:



1. Search results now move well beyond text: pictures, videos, Twitter feeds, etc

2. Search teams up with Social Media to improve user experience;

3. Search is getting more personal than ever to build on relevancy and

4. We're now witnessing a tendency towards Universal Search - a "one-stop shop" for every search demands.

As for market innovations, search keeps constantly surprising in its diversity:

1. Site Links: additional links to traditional paid search results,served on the top paid search ad. Main benefits: the advertiser can better control traffic to his source site, increase CTR and quality score:



Take-aways:
- Site Links require a high Quality Score;
- Advertisers can add up to 10 links;
- Google will select the 4 most relevant to serve!

2. Local Extensions - an other example of recent ad formats, becoming extremely popular = address added to local ads, an expansion option providing a map, address and phone for top results:



Take-aways:

- Local Extensions provide opportunities for Click-to-Call on Smart Phones;
- Ads only appear for users relevant to your location;
- The advertiser only pays if the user clicks on the ad, which means that when your local extension is being opened – you inform the user of your location without paying for it at this stage! – which means you’re able to get more information across before the click is enabled!

3. Product Extensions - refer to enhanced product plus box for top search ads, displaying product title, image and URL linked from Google Merchant Center:



Take-aways:

- Product extensions are triggered when the query for your ad matches to your product;
- It's proced on a CPC basis;
- The advertiser can select which product to display;

Benefits? Increase CTR & quality score, informing searchers about the advertiser's inventory and direct traffic to popular or high value products.


4. Product Listings - are beta products, requiring a Google Affiliate Network account linked to Google Merchant center account. The major difference between product extensions and listings being that Google is the one to select which product listings to display!



Take-aways:

- Entire inventory listed;
- Payment made only when you close a sale;


5. Video Extensions:



Take-aways:

- Not only Google are making Ad extensions!
Yahoo! has a program called Rich Ads in Search
which can display either video or images, additional links,
plus an option of getting a quote by entering a ZIP code!
- Charge model: CPC basis.

Hope that was useful. Thank you for keeping an eye on our articles by sending us emails with your "menu suggestions" for further Digital Lunches - these are extremely useful to us! (Special "thank you" note to Ray, Melanie and Lilly for suggesting a search marketing topic). Also, mobile and email marketing seem to be quite popular suggestions, so we'll address these in future posts.

Cooking for you,

@Digilunch




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