An article yesterday in MediaPost profiled a study done by comScore for Google. From the comScore press release:
comScore Networks today released results from a new research study that confirms the importance of search in influencing offline buying. The results show that 25 percent of searchers purchased an item directly related to their query, and that of those buyers, 37 percent completed their purchase online. An even greater 63 percent completed a purchase offline following their search activity.
The study, sponsored by Google, entitled “The Role of Search in Consumer Buying” examined the impact of Web search (excluding comparison shopping sites) on consumers’ holiday-related purchases completed online and offline during November and December 2005, across 11 product categories. The study reflects the searching behavior of 83 million Americans who conducted more than 552 million searches in the categories analyzed using one or more of the 24 leading search engines.
Online Shopping, Offline Conversions
Readers of this blog will have seen previous posts on this same general topic. The latest study just confirms what we’ve known for a long time. Although e-commerce may have reached US$90 billion in 2005, it represents only 2.5 percent of total U.S. retail!
So what about the research-online-purchase-offline (RonPoff) funnel that is increasingly influencing the other 97.5% of U.S. retail? A great deal of attention has been paid to the e-commerce purchase funnel, but its seems pretty clear, based on these studies, that most businesses (aka online advertisers!) should be paying more attention to the RonPoff purchase funnel. What does it look like? Where do consumers start their online research process, and where do they end up online before buying offline? What categories of sites are the most effective sources of offline conversions?
Many of the answers end up being category specific. But one thing holds true across all categories…regardless of the site or the advertisement…direct response is the key for RonPoff. More online leads = more offline conversions. The corollary for publishers is… Deliver more leads to advertisers = generate more revenue.
And that’s where ContactAtOnce! comes in. We help online publishers and paid search providers deliver more and better leads to their advertisers!
Riding the Skype Wave
As reported by TechCrunch, companies are emerging to augment the Skype applications. Ads-Click, a Swiss company, recently announced Sky-Click a call center product. Sky-click is expected to offer traditional call center functionality like hold queues, touch-tone menuing all using Skype. The idea, as I understand it, is to leverage Skype as the Voice transport for both consumer and company thereby saving telephony costs. The release of such a product by an advertising technology company signals further investment and additional innovation in presence-based ads. Stay tuned.