Did you know that search advertising is not just for improving your click through rates and helping you generate profits? That they can also be used to create better brand awareness? A recent study conducted by Google has revealed that search advertising also plays a vital role in making a brand more visible and popular online.
From January to December 2013, the tech giant said it teamed up with Ipsos MediaCT to conduct 61 simulated search experiments involving 800 US consumers to measure the impact of search ads on key brand metrics, particularly top-of-mind awareness and unaided brand awareness. In each study, the respondents were asked to search for a category keyword on their computers and were then exposed to either a Test search engine results page (SERP) or a Control SERP.
The Test SERP contained the test brand in the top search ad position and with all other ads on the page moved down by one position. The Control SERP, on the other hand, did not feature an ad from the test brand at all. After conducting the studies, the results that Google found were quite astonishing.
The study revealed that search has a positive impact on both top-of-mind awareness and unaided brand awareness. The researchers also found that it helps improve consumers’ brand awareness even if they didn’t click on the ad at all. According to Google, when the respondents were asked what brand first came to their mind when thinking about a specific category keyword, an average of 14.8% of the Test group named the test brand. Only 8.2% of the Control group named the same brand. The tech giant said this was a 6.6 percentage point increase, or an average 80% growth, in top-of-mind awareness.
As for unaided awareness, when respondents were asked to name up to four more brands related to the specific category keywords, 26.7% of the Test group and 17.5% of the Control group named all related brands. This represented an average increase of 9.2 percentage points.
According to Google, the results of the study clearly indicate that, as compared to traditional marketing and advertising methods, search advertising is a more powerful and cost-effective way to influence a target audience and affect its market perception. In addition, it can impact brand awareness in the “moments that matter to consumers,” such as when they are shopping and obtaining more information about a particular product.
For brands and marketers, Google’s latest study has shown that you shouldn’t underestimate search ads. With their power to raise brand awareness and affect consumer behaviour, search ads are definitely something you should incorporate in your overall digital marketing strategy.
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