Shea Beck

Just because you aren’t getting your dream click through rate like you did 10 years ago on your banner ads doesn’t mean they aren’t influential. A recent study by Specific Media based on ComScore data highlights the fact that you must dig deeper into metrics rather than looking at a single number to determine the success of a marketing campaign. When assessing your marketing plan, please take a step back and look at the whole picture before cutting or adding budget to a tactic. This report focuses on how two tactics feed each other, search and display.

Specific Media shows that display ads will enhance your search marketing program. It basically reiterates the best practice of using multiple mediums to get your message across. For example, yesterday I was looking around on ESPN.com at some NBA stats. Fittingly an ad popped up for StubHub tickets. Today, I wanted to checkout some Suns ticket prices so I searched for NBA tickets in Google. I could have easily clicked on TickCo or TicketsNow, but I actually remembered seeing StubHub that gave me a sense of familiarity. Brand awareness is a big part of Search Marketing, if I have never seen your brand even if it’s just online, I will probably avoid you.

Okay, nice example but you want some numbers. Well, the average lift in search activity for those who were served a display ad was 155% vs those who were not served a display ad. The lift was 22% on the low end for Consumer Goods and 274% on the high end for Travel and Tourism clients.