5 Comments

Conversion Rates – the Search Engine Equalizer

Feb 16, 2006
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Many marketers know that visitors coming from different search engines, on average, convert at different rates. The demographics of AOL or MSN searchers differ from Yahoo and Google.

Yesterday, WebSideStory released the results of a study that measured actual conversion rates for these major 4 search engines. AOL and MSN came up on top over Yahoo and Google.

For the month of January, AOL Search generated the best conversion rate at business-to consumer e-commerce sites (6.17 percent), followed by MSN (6.03 percent), Yahoo (4.07 percent) and Google (3.83 percent), according to the WebSideStory Index, a new statistical barometer that features techno-graphic and e-commerce trends culled from the millions of users that visit web sites using the company’s award-winning web analytics technology, HBX Analytics. The study includes traffic from both organic and paid keywords.

Based on this data, AOL and MSN conversion rates are 30-40% higher than Yahoo and Google. My take is that some of this behavior can be attributed to demographics as Google users tend to be male and more technically savvy, where AOL and MSN users are more run-of-the-mill. Further, AOL and MSN users more typcially have those portals as their homepages and starting points. Therefore more of their internet activity goes through those searches, even if they know exactly what they want and not actually searching. While Google attracts more actual “searchers”.

Regardless of the reasons, on average, AOL and MSN traffic is more valuable. Google’s marketshare, according to a July 2005 comscore report, is more than double MSN’s and more than triple AOL’s. But when applying a 40% discount to Google based on conversion, it brings it a good deal closer to par with the others.

With MSN’s sparkly new paid search offering (still Beta) as well as the relative ease of getting sites listed (applying various SEO techniques that are less effective Yahoo and Google), this should get search engine marketers thinking more about MSN.

About Scott Jangro

You can find Scott on Twitter: @jangro.

Filed under: Search Engine Marketing
  • http://www.revenews.com/jimkukral Jim Kukral

    Yes, I have been talking about this for years, in my head. MSN has always converted better for me, and I finally made the decision based upon the landscape at hand that told me…

    MSN users are rubes, so to speak. In other words, they just don’t know any better. Paid ads, sponsored ads, they are all just search results.

    You’re dead on about Google and its demo. My 70-something dad doesn’t use Google, ever, never even been there. Just uses that good old MSN browser that comes up as his start page every day.

  • Beth Kirsch

    What is interesting also is that you can put different offers in the various engines. Those people from AOL will buy anything and you don’t need to give them a coupon. :-) Google is a different story.

  • http://www.peronii.co.za Dirk

    Hi Scott

    Nice find. So what would you recommend we marketers out of the US do to capitalise on ppc advertising alternative to Google to capture the bigger conversions?

    Regards
    Dirk

  • http://www.ontarget-media.com Manoj Aravindakshan

    Scott:
    There’s certainly no denying the fact that search engine marketers would be ignoring MSN at their own peril. Likewise, I have found that Overture/YSM has converted better than Adwords for some of the client accounts we manage, at a much lower cost per conversion (though the volume of traffic coming in from the former was significantly lower).

    Yet, I’d like to understand one of your inferences— I’m not clear why being male and more technically savvy has anything to do with the conversion rates reported in the study.

    Also I believe that if MSN users cannot differentiate between sponsored results and organic results the same should apply for Google; in fact, my gut feel is that because of the “clutter-free” image of Google, people would find it harder to distinguish between paid and organic listings there.

    In any case, my understanding is that the study talks about conversion rates from the search results overall, and not just from PPC results (pls. correct me if I am wrong).

    If that is indeed the case, question is: are MSN and AOL offering more relevant search results?

    A key premise of search engine marketing was that users should be targeted at the time they search because they are showing an intent/ need for that product/service (or information). But these results indicate that users can be attracted into the buying funnel by other factors– content, community, etc. etc.

  • http://www.jangro.com scott Jangro

    Manoj, thanks for the comments.

    I think the more technically savvy the user is, the less likely they are to use a search engine when they really don’t need to.

    By this I mean, if a technically savvy person is ready to purchase something, they’ll go directly to the site from where they intend to purchase. No searching involved.

    However, there are a significant number of Internet users (rubes as Jim calls them) who don’t know the difference between the address bar in a browser and the search box on their homepage. My assertion is that these people tend more to be MSN and AOL users and effectively launch into any and every browsing activity starting with the search box, even if they know exactly where they want to go.

    Not the only factor, but in my opinion a significant one.