Online Marketing with eprofessional
Ready, steady, search!
Users’ searches are conditioned by their preferences, moods and life circumstances
Online advertising has to learn how to differentiate between users who are hunting and those who are just browsing
Hamburg, 18 September 2007 – Internet users display as much variety as the internet’s contents itself. A user’s preferences, mood and lifestyle are the main factors that influence what sites they visit online. For example, over 70% of 20-29 year-olds use the internet for entertainment and satisfying their curiosity, but only 40% of users aged 50 and over do so. Instead, older users are much more interested in information and news. Knowledge about users’ motivation is of prime importance if an advertising campaign is to be successful. Users visiting an e-shop generally have a particular objective, and because they are in “hunting mode”, they are not very receptive for advertising that uses classic online banners. The challenge facing media planners is how to create the right kind of message that addresses the needs of both users who are in a hurry and users who are just browsing. This is the conclusion reached by the 24th W3B internet user analysis, undertaken by Fittkau & Maaß to survey internet users’ opinions for eprofessional, the performance marketing agency. The topic of this survey was “Online Advertising: Acceptance and Relevance“.
Online advertising is effective. However, to make full use of online ads’ potential, they have to take the user’s motivation into account. 40% of the survey’s respondents who use the internet for “window shopping” say that they have discovered interesting products via ads. Bargain hunters are different: only 34% of them say that products have caught their attention via ads. In other words, the more definite a user’s aims are when looking for something online, the more likely their “tunnel vision” is to block out advertising.
Generally speaking, the users of online shops dislike being distracted from their hunt for a particular product by the sudden appearance of colourful banners and pop-ups. About 61% of active online shoppers find text-based ads less of an intrusion than other forms of online advertising that get in the users’ way. Only 39% of internet users who don’t buy online share this opinion. Taken together, these two factors represent the biggest challenge for online advertising: how to get users’ attention without being intrusive. When trying to reach bargain hunters, it is especially important that the ad is placed in such a manner that it helps them get to their goal quickly.
One option that enables ads to provide assistance and point users in the right direction is to book search terms. Activating terms and keywords that take their cues from users’ entries can gain these users’ attention in a non-intrusive manner. Users’ increasing desire for convenience makes the use of search term marketing even more attractive: when the ads that appear on the results page match users’ personal needs, they help the users reach their desired aims faster. Another advantage that text ads have in search engines is their high visibility – after all, search engines are now the cornerstones of internet use, and almost 90% of 20-29 year-olds discover websites they had previously not been aware of by using search engines.
A victory for convenience: virtually no users bypass the high-speed services of search portals when looking for information online.(Bild)
About the survey:
The 24th survey of the internet user analysis W3B took place in April-May 2007, and it featured the set of questions commissioned by eprofessional on the topic “Online Advertising: Acceptance and Relevance”. Over 100,000 German-speaking internet users were asked for their opinions during the five-week data collection period. The results of the survey have appeared in the form of studies and online calculation tools that present detailed and up-to-date facts about the profiles, attitudes and behaviour of internet users, enabling trends and developments to be documented as they happen. For 12 years, W3B has been one of the most important sources of information and one of the most important studies covering internet contents in German. 80 leading internet providers with over 200 websites took part in the 24th W3B survey.
About eprofessional GmbH:
eprofessional is one of the leading performance marketing agencies in Europe. Founded in Hamburg in 1999, the company conducts national and international branding and sales campaigns on the Internet. Their service portfolio comprises the strategic planning of online advertising measures, online media planning, search engine marketing, search engine optimisation, affiliate marketing, as well as performance optimisation. More than 80 specialists employ their expertise and their passion for technology, numbers and marketing every day in order to achieve the best advertising effect and the highest possible ROI. Renowned companies, such as Beiersdorf, Heine, Thalia.de, Barclaycard, Victoria Versicherungen and T-Com, put their trust in eprofessional’s service. We can achieve more for you.