14 DAY TRIAL // Mastering search ads, much like SEO, sometimes takes some very occult and strange knowledge and undertakings, with the results, while measurable, largely unexplainable. Research firm ClearSaleing Inc., an advertising analytics provider, aims to shed light on some aspects of search advertising with some interesting data showing that 48 percent of the time users end up buying a different product than the ad they followed showed.
In a guest post on Search Engine Land, ex-Googler Adam Goldberg, co-founder of CrealSaleing, talks about the study, as well as its methodology and implications. The research focused on specific searches, keywords that were for certain products excluding general product searches or brand names. The meaningful keywords that resulted in sales were then grouped based on what products were purchased. Users who bought the exact same product that was presented in the ads were placed in the “Exact” group, while those who purchased products from the same category were placed in the “Similar” group. Finally those who bought products completely unrelated to the ads they followed were grouped in “Unrelated.”
The study found that only 50 percent of the customers would fall under the “Exact” category, buying what they came in for, while 9.9 percent bought similar products. A large part, the remaining 39.1 percent, ended up buying something completely different. As to the reason why this is happening the study doesn't venture a guess, focusing more on the benefits of having this type of data, not surprising for a study coming from a research company.
“The benefits of this analysis are many, especially when it is available as part of your advertising analytics solution. First and foremost is the accuracy that comes with understanding which products are sold by each ad. This insight allows companies to apply real margins to each conversion vs. an average margin,” Goldber wrote. “In addition to the accuracy of performance metrics, this analysis can also be used to improve the performance of ads by identifying business actions that can be taken.”