Welcome to ‘What Happened in Search’.
Packed full of the week’s search marketing news each Friday, this week we launch our August infographic: Taking a Gamble on Display. We’re also talking about Google’s Journey to Online Purchase report, Facebook’s referral traffic, the rise of US e-commerce and Amazon banning Flash.
INFOGRAPHIC: TAKING A GAMBLE ON DISPLAY
The next in our series of monthly infographics is on the topic of Display Marketing, a channel that not many advertisers understand the full potential of.
Vicki Gore, SEM Strategy Director, created the infographic alongside addmustard’s design team and says, “Reaching the right people at the right time is difficult, especially when there are millions of other companies competing for the same person – Fortunately this is where Display has an advantage.”
addmustard’s infographic demonstrates how Display Targeting methods can convert, and gives a realistic analysis of each method, so that you’re in for a clear win.
ONLINE PURCHASE JOURNEYS
Think with Google’s latest report, The Customer Journey to Online Purchase, explores the ways in which different channels affect customer purchase decisions around the world and across multiple verticals.
Google found that ‘more complex purchases lead to longer paths and larger values’, so it makes sense that purchases made in more than one step account for 64% of UK online revenue.
Behaviour was studied to establish whether channels were more likely to play an ‘assist’ or awareness role, or to be part of the last interaction, when a purchase decision is made.
BATTLE OF THE GIANTS
According to traffic analytics firm Parse.ly, Facebook refers more traffic to news sites than Google.
The report looked at referral traffic to the top 100 news sites and found that from May to July, social media accounted for 43%, versus the 38% of traffic that came from search engines. Of the total traffic, Google sites and Facebook made up almost three quarters.
In Autumn 2013, Google’s referral dominance peaked, and Facebook began to see steady growth. This is the first time that Facebook has come out on top, making up 38.3% of referral traffic.
E-COMMERCE SALES BOOM
A report carried out by the US Commerce Department has revealed that e-commerce sales in the states jumped 14.1% in Q2 2015, compared with the same quarter last year.
7.2% of total retail sales now come from e-commerce, an increase of almost 10% from last year.
Based on a sample of approximately 10,000 US retail companies (not including food companies), overall US retail sales increased by just 1.0% YoY.
The sample may have included retailers with no e-commerce presence.
AMAZON BANS FLASH ADS
Amazon has announced that as of 1st September 2015, it will ban Flash-based ads from its site, and from its Amazon Advertising Platform.
The move comes because of Chrome, Firefox and Safari’s browser settings that limit Flash content, and Apple’s restriction of it on its iPad and iPhones.
