Efficient Frontier Insights

Finance vs Travel: The Mobile Landscape

Mobile is a hot topic at the moment. Search engines, agencies and clients are all talking about its relative performance to desktop, and the growing opportunity for advertisers. This post examines this relative performance across verticals (specifically finance and travel) to understand for whom this opportunity is greatest, and where first-mover advantages still exist.

We have taken mobile data from several UK accounts in each vertical, over the last three months. Brand campaigns and Google Display Network  campaigns have been removed from the equation for clarity (volumes for these vary by account, skewing the stats) and the results have been indexed against desktop performance. Here are the results:

Travel

 

 Finance

 
As we have seen before, mobile is still small-fry compared to fixed-line search, accounting for approximately 4% of searches here (although note that as the CTR is higher, mobile accounts for a greater proportion of traffic, at around 6-7%). Both CPCs and conversion rates are much lower on mobile. (Note: the percentage rates will vary according to the campaign, but what is important – and consistent - is the relativity between mobile and fixed-line search.)

Finance vs Travel (mobile indexed to fixed line search)

 

Not surprisingly, click-through rates from a mobile device are higher for travel brands than for finance.  Travel advertisers’ CTR on mobile as opposed to fixed line is twice as strong as the CTR of finance advertisers. This highlights the greater click-volume opportunity for travel advertisers than for finance companies. Another interesting point is that the CTR for finance companies on mobile  is lower than on desktop. Again, this is most likely because of the nature of the product, where the application process is more time-consuming and there are concerns over mobile security. However, this does not necessarily diminish the importance of mobile, since it is feasible that users perform a generic search (e.g. for ‘credit cards’) on-the-go, without clicking through, before following up with a brand search on their desktop.

This somewhat hidden branding value is possibly a factor in the next result – CPCs. Again, since mobile search is generally more developed for travel brands, you might expect CPCs to be higher (relative to desktop) than for finance brands. However, the difference is not as significant as you might think. This highlights that competition is strong across both verticals, as finance PPC campaigns chase this ‘branding’ value.

Conversion rates on mobile are 50 percent those of desktop search for travel companies, and 25 percent for finance companies. Again, this underlines the opportunity that exists for travel brands compared to finance.

Conclusion:

Travel sites are clearly better placed to directly benefit from mobile search, with higher CTR and conversion rates, and similar CPCs to Finance. There is still a question mark over what effect ‘optimising’ a site for mobile campaigns has on these numbers .  Conversion rates won’t match fixed-line search immediately, but the potential uplift (especially in travel) is significant.

Finance metrics are a fair bit behind travel, which is mostly down to issues such as users’ trust of mobile security, and practical issues of having to fill out large amounts of data on a mobile screen. But the increasing use of mobile search (and the likelihood of consumers using mobile to research, if not buy, financial products) means that there may well be an indirect impact on the performance of branded search on a desktop, which shouldn’t be ignored.

Scott Laidlaw - Associate Account Manager - UK

Social Media Insider Summit - Our Take

Integration of Social was the core theme of this week’s Social Media Insider Summit, and we at Efficient Frontier and Context Optional enjoyed meeting new faces and adding to the great discussions around what challenges brands are facing today, particularly focusing on the integration and measurement of social media. Here are some highlights from the last few days:

Has Facebook peaked?

Top internet stock analyst Jordan Rohan examined the relative safe haven social media is enjoying compared to the greater woes in the economy. Has Facebook’s growth peaked, and if so what does that mean for our industry overall? Facebook accounts for 75% of all Internet traffic, and nearly every other action a user does online is on Facebook. But there are signs of decline, and Facebook is vulnerable to changes in customer preference and sentiment. Ultimately, Rohan does not believe Facebook has peaked, but will peak someday due to platform shortcomings, leading to opportunities for competitors like Google+ and Twitter to swoop in and gain market share. 

Social and Mobile

The integration of Social and Mobile is still in discovery and development phase, according to a panel of experts. While around 50% of social network traffic comes from Mobile, less than 10% is monetizable and there is a high rate of accidental clicks on Mobile ads. Poor ROI and limited learnings are deterring marketers from greater Mobile spend and digital budgets. Mobile, Social and emerging technologies together are still only a fragment of overall ad spend.

Social and Search

Integrating Social and Search was a big topic at the summit for presenters, panelists and attendees alike. There was a lot of open discussion around Social’s effect on Search behavior and results, benefits of Social ads like Facebook’s Sponsored Stories, and learnings around Social/Search analytics. Kristine Segrist of MEC Interaction claimed Social actions are a new brand of creative, and Context Optional CEO Kevin Barenblat spoke to Sponsored Stories’ role as the middle ground between Search and Social. He emphasized the relationship of optimizing ads and improving customer engagement, which increases fan base and Social endorsements, adding more fuel to the Social and Search fire. Indeed, Big Fuel CEO Jon Bond revealed there is a 50% lift in click-through rates from consumers exposed to both Social and paid Search.

Social and Social

According to several panelists, Social is not just Facebook; there are other social networks you should be paying attention to -- Google+, niche players like Spotify, and the greater open social graph. These services enrich your audience data and expand opportunities for acquisition and engagement. Marketers have a big opportunity to merge data sets across communities and examine factors that identify true brand advocates and preferences to better market to them.

Social as Seen by Twenty-somethings

A panel of twenty-something college grads and working professionals at the end of Day 2 put many things into perspective for Social Media Insider attendees and put a human face behind the numbers and metrics we as marketers spend so much time focused on. The power of word-of-mouth is what drives their actions on social networks, from deciding whether or not to Like a brand, to real, honest engagement in the newsfeed between the user and the brand.  Incentives are still a powerful attractor at the local level, and while MySpace is out and Facebook is in, this demographic is not tied to one platform for all they do online.

 

A lot of insight and a lot of learnings to be had by all at the Social Media Insider Summit. Thanks to MediaPost for putting on a great event and hello to all the customers, partners and new friends we made up here in beautiful Lake Tahoe.

See the Agenda:http://bit.ly/qLZs5E

The difference between social display and 'regular' display impressions? We respond to AdExchanger.com.

AdExchanger.com posed the following question to us, and Efficient Frontier's Justin Merickel rose to the occasion to respond:"What is the difference between a social display impression and a 'regular" display impression?

Justin Merickel, VP of Marketing, Efficient Frontier

"A social impression is one that includes the explicit social endorsement of a friend or connection. The simplest form of social endorsement is the “like” or “plus” action on Facebook or Google. These are easy consumer actions that are powerful additions to ads. Facebook's Sponsored Stories represent a more complex social endorsement, using direct interactions with brands as the content of the ad itself. Our research has shown that Sponsored Stories generate over 3X higher CTR as compared to other ads on Facebook at a consistently lower cost-per-action.

The success of socially endorsed ads will yield increasing emphasis on this ad-type across the industry. With Google, Twitter, and others holding robust data assets on likes, interests, and connections, we are likely only seeing the beginning of how these ads will be executed over the coming months and years. More traditional online publishers lacking this social data will be forced to innovate themselves or partner to benefit from growing demand for social impressions.

In order to capitalize on the opportunity, smart marketers are linking content with ads much more closely. New organizational and process alignment is already starting to happen. Achieving both a critical mass of fans/followers and delivering strong engagement on and off social networks is required to deliver on the potential impact of social impressions."

To read more: http://www.adexchanger.com/social-media/social-display-impression/#ef

Austin or bust!

We work hard to help brands build their fanbase and cultivate critical mass in social. Now we need your help to create a critical mass of our own. Please help us achieve and engage an audience at this year’s South by South West festival in Austin, Texas by casting your vote to support our panel, “Social Role-Playing: Brands and Publishers”.

• Visit: http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/9024
• Register with SXSW
• Cast your vote
• The deadline to vote is Friday, September 2nd

If selected, our panel will discuss these essential questions:

• How do traditional publishers handle now having to be short-form curators on social media platforms to keep readers and stay relevant?
• How do brands keep up as publishers, and constant publishers at that, in the social media sphere, consistently engaging brand enthusiasts and luring potential consumers coming to the table?
• If the advent of social media platforms causes brands to become publishers then what do publishers become? Will the delineation even matter as social media marches on?
• What are examples of successful campaigns presented by brands and publishers and what were some of the key lessons and details?
• How do companies that offer social media marketing solutions and management measure success?

We appreciate your help!

Five Minutes with Julie Warburton - New European Client Service Director

Last month, Julie Warburton, formerly the European regional director for search and search operations at Microsoft, joined Efficient Frontier as client services director, EMEA. Her career in search and advertising  has included senior positions within Microsoft and Yahoo!, where she specialised in search, display advertising and media. Julie started her online career as advertising operations director at Yahoo! Europe in 1998 and moved to Overture as head of implementation, ahead of the acquisition of Overture by Yahoo! in 2002. In 2004, she joined Microsoft to launch the adCenter business across Europe, and went on to take a variety of roles across Microsoft Advertising, managing clients service for search, display, the media network and ad operations.

We caught up with Julie to find out a bit about her new role.

Julie, you’re responsible for Efficient Frontier’s client relationships in Europe. Can you tell us what you see as the drivers in performance marketing in Europe?

In the last three to four years there’s been a marked trend towards brands wanting to drive real value and demonstrate ROI from their online activities. They’re investing in technologies and online advertising that is measurable in financial terms - performance marketing - to the detriment of some branding and awareness advertising. They’ve got to be able to demonstrate a return for their budget. We’re still seeing the very high-end brand advertising going ahead, but performance marketing seems to be stealing budget from the more ‘middle ground’ brand advertising.

The economy has played a big part in this shift, but also companies like Efficient Frontier are able to make advertising completely accountable. That’s good news for the brands, of course, but also for the marketing directors, who can report back to their boards on the effectiveness of their online spend.

As the economy improves, I can’t see brands wanting to give up that accountability and going back to the way things were before. The days of the late 90s – buying impressions or views, rather than action – have gone for good.

What are the biggest changes that you’ve seen in search and advertising in the last few years?

Two to three years ago, advertisers moved away from specialists to consolidate all their work (and fees) through their brand agencies, or even took departments in house. But what’s interesting now is that those same advertisers are realising that they just can’t get the kind of specialist expertise that way. The technology investment alone now for performance marketing campaigns is enormous, and it makes no sense for each agency – or brand – to build it themselves, and then train up employees to use it, when they can use specialist teams.

How different is the market now from when you started at Yahoo!?

Incredibly different. We used to have a ‘Wall of Shame’ at Yahoo! where we used to stick ridiculous emails and photos. Eleven or 12 years ago we had an email up there from an advertiser promising to fax us a banner ad!

There’s been a huge increase in automation of processes. Reporting and analysis was done manually using Excel spreadsheets, and ads were all created manually, too. We simply couldn’t have dealt with the volumes that you can manage now, using technology.

What are the biggest lessons you learned during your time at Yahoo! and Microsoft?

The most important lesson I learnt was to think like the client. Always consider what matters to them, what do they need to know about their customers’ journeys. They need us to help them to create smart campaigns that get results. They also need us to help them report to their management teams, by analysing data to give them real insights into customer behaviour.

What’s important to clients at the moment, and what will they want to see in the next year?

The thing that is exciting clients more than anything at the moment is how to optimise campaigns across different channels. A lot of our clients are thinking ‘by device’ at the moment – tracking, for example, by tablet. Understanding your customer’s journey across different channels and then optimising your campaign accordingly is a key goal for many customers.

Brands  are working hard to integrate their search campaigns with their social media campaigns, particularly Facebook. The acquisition of Context Optional is a response to this need and will really change the way brands manage their social presence alongside search and display.

ROI is, of course, extremely important. Clients want value – they want to use their budget effectively and efficiently. They don’t want to maintain the status quo – they’ll try new tools and initiatives that will improve ROI.

How do you see the Google / Facebook rivalry panning out in social media?

It’s really too soon to tell what the impact of Google+ will be and how consumers will use it. It could be very interesting if it manages to pull in other aspects of Google.

The US rollout of Google Offers is interesting  – it could hit Groupon hard.

What are your ambitions for Efficient Frontier?

I’d like Efficient Frontier to develop its reputation as achieving the best performance through the best technology and the best people. We’re continuing to grow the team, investing in the best talent both by hiring well and by developing long-term careers for employees. We’re winning fantastic new business and are attracting the best people to run it.

Social is seeing phenomenal growth at the moment. What’s driving this growth and can it be sustained?

Social has a long way to go before it peaks. It’s being driven by where consumers are going, not just by the technology – brands need to understand where the audience is, target effectively and work out how best to engage with that audience. Consumers will always be social, and will always use different channels to support their networks of friends, online and offline. For social media to work for brands, brands must be super-relevant to consumers.

How would you sum up Efficient Frontier?

We enable our clients to understand the return and interaction from each online channel, then deliver the best performance with our platform and great services team.

July CPCs: Automotive and Retail CPCs increase as Finance CPCs drop

We saw mixed trends in CPCs in July as Finance CPCs decreased 13% Month over Month (MoM) while Automotive and Retail CPCs increased 9% and 4%, respectively. However, on a Year over Year (YoY) basis CPCs in all three verticals were up. CPCs in August will be interesting to watch, as historically the spend in the Financial vertical is closely correlated to the S&P 500. With the current downtrend in the stock markets the CPCs in Finance could drop further.

We’ll be watching and will keep you posted.

Dr Siddharth Shah
Sr. Director, Business Analytics

 

Multi-Click Data, Multi Frustrations?

In my latest Search Engine Land column, I take a look at click paths. While they may seem mundane or complex they are very useful tools when broken down in understanding how consumers behave. For instance, one can tell how much time consumers spend researching purchases, how some keywords help other keywords convert, and when coupled with attribution they can inform bidding decisions.

For more on the subject and some helpful tips, visit this link to my recent analysis:
http://searchengineland.com/making-sense-of-multi-click-data-88571

Dr. Siddharth Shah
Sr. Director, Business Analytics

Back to school: Why brand engagement trends force us to revisit our assumptions

Pop quiz: One of these charts represents the query volume for “back to school” on Google and the other represents the number of unique users commenting on several brand Fan pages that are actively promoting back-to-school marketing campaigns on Facebook. Can you tell which one is which?

The answer to the question is that A represents the total number of daily active users on Facebook of back-to-school brands, and B represents query volume on Google for terms related to “back to school.” At first glance we could not tell the difference. Both graphs show a similar trend: a relatively stable pattern until early July when both show a sharp increase in activity. The only difference is in the magnitude; B shows a much sharper increase than A.

Social signals vs. Search signals: Same difference?

The currently-held notion is that Search and Social signals are fundamentally different. Search is a more direct-intent-based signal that reflects a shopper late in the sales cycle, while data from Facebook represents someone earlier in the funnel. However, the above data suggests that both signals are very similar. So should we treat Search and brand engagement signals in the same way?

Yes and no. Yes as the above example shows that consumers’ engagement behavior on Facebook and intent behavior on Google follow a very similar temporal pattern. No because they fundamentally represent different behavioral aspects. Facebook comment data indicates how many and how frequently users are engaging with brands on their Fan pages, while Google query data indicates what questions, products or services need immediate answers. The similarity in time trends means that both of these behaviors are taking place simultaneously albeit in different channels.

Leveraging the cross-channel effect

The data reveals several interesting trends in consumer behavior. First, while the context of consumers on Facebook and Google is different, they are often pursuing a similar end goal. In this case, they are looking to buy back-to-school related items. Second, these activities are taking place simultaneously. Finally, they are often switching back and forth between the two channels before making the final purchasing decision.

Advertisers would do well to consider these insights when formulating their marketing campaigns. They must engage and actively manage the perception of their brands within the Facebook environments. Simultaneously they must also have a substantial presence on the search engines to guide consumers during the intent stage of the sales funnel.

Readers of this blog know that there is a significant cross-channel effect when it comes to direct marketing -- between 40-50% of conversions that begin with a social ad convert on a different channel. The above trends also tell us that there is a significant cross-channel effect in the research phase of the purchase process (impressions are the early stage metric in paid Search while comments on brand fan pages are the Facebook analog). Advertisers must also have a cross-channel tracking and optimization solution in place to understand the nature of their traffic and answer the hard questions, such as what is the effect of the posts they (the advertisers) make on the paid Search, organic and direct website traffic.

Thus, as CMOs look to maximize the ROI of their social media efforts, they must revisit all their assumptions. They must plan their marketing campaigns holistically considering all the cross-channel effects. A siloed view of channel performance would only give a narrow understanding of consumer behavior and could lead to decisions that would leave money on the table.

Dr Siddharth Shah
Sr. Director, Business Analytics

I would like to thank Sara Miller, Business Analyst at Context Optional, for helping me compile the data.