July 18, 2006

Understanding Commercial Intent on Search Queries

One of the interesting themes in search today is determining the consumer's intention to undertake a commercial activity on their search terms - whether it is buy, auction, complete an application form and the like. While Hitwise offers a Conversions product that can show exactly which search terms convert to a specific action, our Competitive Intelligence service also offers insight into the commercial intention of online users.

For this case study I've looked at house and garden websites, with the focus on retail activity. Hitwise separates visits to House & Garden websites into two separate categories: Shopping & Classifieds (retail-oriented) and Lifestyle (reference-oriented). The Hitwise Clickstream tool tells us that after visiting Lifestyle - House & Garden, consumers are most likely within 21 retail categories, to go on and visit Shopping & Classifieds - House and Garden. This might seem like an obvious assertion, but it's important to show the influence of the lifestyle category, which is information-oriented, on the whole commercial cycle. It's also a demonstration of the flow of movement between research and purchase.

That established, what are the differences in search term behaviour between the categories which can indicate that a user is moving from a research/information phase into purchase mode? Here's a keyword breakdown analysis of both categories:

The above analysis demonstrates that visits to the Lifestyle - House & Garden category have higher volumes of search phrases with multiple key words. Search phrases with 3 words and more were proportionately higher in the Lifestyle category than Shopping & Classifieds. The conclusion here is that detailed search phrases are indicative of a consumer behaving within the research phase of a purchase.

As the consumer moves to Shopping & Classifieds websites, the consumer typically searches on brand names, with the keyword phrases shortening to one or two words. Furthermore, 9 out of the Top 10 searches to S&C - House & Garden are brands.

The take-away for search marketers is to consider that purchases often have a long cycle, with several searches before consumers choose to buy. Hitwise keyword analysis shows detailed searches at the early stages of the purchase cycle, with branded terms more prevalent at purchase time. Marketers may then look at detailed generic search terms for their SEM campaigns and content planning, so as to influence the buyer early on.

Here are 20 examples of detailed generic search terms to the Lifestyle - House & Garden category (out of a possible 122,657 for the 12 weeks ending July 8, 2006) giving marketers an idea of what consumers may later transact on:

double hung windows
second hand kitchens
aluminium sliding doors
garden water features
home theatre design
japanese garden plants
knitting pattern scarf
exterior house colour schemes
building a sandpit
bathroom tile design
wardrobe storage solutions
basil gardening problems
home design software
australian native shrubs
price of concrete
portable gas bbq
chinese tallow tree
tiling around bath
how to plant kiwi fruit trees
build a carport

Posted by Sandra Hanchard at 12:47 PM
Posted to Search

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Comments

Posted by: Search Engine WEB at July 19, 2006 12:22 PM

Posted by: Sandra Hanchard at July 19, 2006 12:40 PM

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