There’s a lot of buzz at the moment about the idea of online campaigns integrating different advertising formats, rather than marketers concentrating on just one channel.
It’s certainly not a new idea - after all, as consumers we're exposed to many different media every day and, more pertinently, when making decisions on what to buy; so it makes sense that the best advertising campaigns are those that present us with a relevant message at each stage of that decision-making process.
This doesn't necessarily mean spending more on each campaign, but rather thinking carefully about which online elements - search, display, social media etc - to include.
What is relatively new is being able to prove the value of combining search and display in an online campaign, particularly in Europe (much of the existing research covering this area has been conducted in the US).
Here at Microsoft we’ve conducted 3 case studies in particular around campaigns in Europe, and the results are compelling. The campaigns are from the UK and France, one each from the finance, travel and technology sectors.
While the exact numbers differ between the campaigns, the results consistently show that the effect of the display advertising is magnified by supporting it with a complementary search campaign; likewise, the impact of the search advertising is greatly increased when consumers are ‘primed’ with a well-planned display schedule.
This increased impact is visible through the key measures of response (how many people visited the advertiser’s website), engagement (page views and time spent on-site), and perhaps most importantly, conversions.
In fact, the combination of search and display in an online schedule was up to 15 times more effective than the display or search elements in isolation.
Our most recent case study takes this analysis a step further, and shows that after seeing the display advertising, consumers are 50% more likely to search on a brand’s key branded keywords (those based on the brand name and any messages used in the display formats).
And, of course, once they’re searching on your brand’s keywords, consumers are one step closer to clicking through to your website...
In short, to get the most out of your search campaign, you should consider running a complementary display campaign to drive consumers to your search keywords. And every display campaign should have a well-executed search element to convert consumers’ interest to action!
If you would like more information about the research, the UK case studies are explained in more detail on the Microsoft Advertising site: click here for the travel study and here for the finance study.
The French case study is so new we haven't been able to post it yet, but will be on the Microsoft Advertising site shortly!
If you have any questions or comments please visit the adCenter Forum.