Search marketing trends: boom in social and mobile, greater centralisation, better use of insights

WFA recently completed research into search marketing: from how multinational companies are investing in search marketing to how they are structured internally and externally to deal with it and how they measure search. All inputs were contributed by WFA's CDOFORUM members.

The results show that 83% of global marketers plan to increase their overall search investment in the next 12 months. They also show the rapid evolution of the search landscape, with social and mobile search set for expansion, whereas investment in natural search has followed a clear pattern decline, from 15% of global digital marketing budget in 2010 to 6% in 2015.

Internally, the trend is to increase centralisation (74% said they're keen to do so) at a time when search is managed by local marketers for almost 40% of respondents. But other organisational changes are also needed in order to tap into the strategic value of search, with insights from search expected to become more important over time for 84% of respondents, whereas just 40% often feed search insights into their wider marketing activity at the moment.

The research also surfaced a number of key search recommendations including:

Search is at its best as part of a broader media plan

It provides a crucial direct response channel to connect consumers with your products and services, but it can also be used to test creative ideas, sound out markets and check the impact of other media.

Multiple roles require different KPI's

Search has multiple roles throughout the consumer journey, especially when considering generic, product and brand keyword groups across both paid and natural search disciplines. Different KPI's should be set at each keyword group level to reflect the roles of search: from initial engagement and site research to sales conversion and post sales customer care.

Search marketers should avoid concentrating all investment into a single engine

Changes to default search engines in smartphones has the power to reshape the search market. Consider how the market may move and adapt strategies for regional and local nuance.

Mobile search traffic has now overtaken desktop

Nearly all WFA respondents plan to increase investment in mobile search in the next 12 months, but the imperative behind mobile search cannot be underlined enough.

Keywords alone won't improve natural ranking

The way that search engines determine results is becoming increasingly complex and sophisticated. A focus on keywords alone is not enough to improve natural ranking. The 'quality' of site content and user experience is becoming increasingly important for leading search engines. This research suggests that investment in SEO is in decline among respondents, but arguably maintaining a focus here is now more important than ever.

Members of the WFA can find more detail on the above recommendations in the full report available here.

The next CDOFORUM will take place on 15th June in Amsterdam, kindly hosted by TomTom. Should you want to attend, please email Matt at m.green@wfanet.org