Monday, November 8, 2010

Google Instant Appears to Change Search Behavior

Many wondered whether "Google Instant" would change search behavior, not to mention ad impressions. An analysis by Marin Software seems to suggest there have been changes.

Users seem to have increased their number of searches and clicks, for example. And user search preferences also seem to have changed, in facor of short searches (defined as three or fewer tokens), which saw a greater increase in impressions and clicks, when compared to long searches, Marin Software says.

That suggests a side effect of "Google Instant." While the 9.3 percent jump in ad impressions could simply be due to more searches, it could also be an artifact of users interacting with predicted search results, or pausing to review interim search results while they refine a longer search query. 

That was something some observers had expected might happen, and it seems to be a valid observation. 

Click volumes also went up by 5.6 percent.  The implication here is that users are probably responding to interim ads while they’re still typing or refining search queries. The analysis suggests that users are now more engaged with the search page and search results. This change in user behavior is a direct consequence of how Google Instant has changed a user’s search experience, says Marin Software. 


The cost per click for exact and phrase-match terms decreased significantly when compared to broad-match terms, implying that search marketers should pay increased attention to refining their match types in a post-Instant world, Marin Software argues. When users have the ability to target and modify searches "on the fly," it appears they respond by narrowing their search parameters.

Some had suggested that the "on the fly" suggestions would lead users to explore a bit more, dwell a bit more and adjust a bit more, in some cases allowing more ad inventory to be displayed than would formerly be the case. That seems to have happened. Google Instant seems to have boosted ad impressions and clicks, increased cost slightly while dropping cost-per-click, a study by Marin Software has found.

Marin Software found that impressions for paid search ads increased by more than nine percent while clicks increased by more than five percent through the first two weeks of Instant’s existence on Google.com.

For the typical enterprise search marketer, it is almost certain that Google Instant will result in more impressions and clicks. Some advertisers may see a decline in their CPC, but it is likely that as advertisers increase daily budgets, CPC values will rise to their pre-Instant values.

Spending rose two percent after "Instant" launched, according to Marin, which compared data for keywords from the two weeks before and after the launch of Google Instant.

Though impressions and clicks rose, cost per click actually went down by 3.47 percent. That could be accounted for by a more -rapid depletion of daily budgets than anticipated, plus lower average costs per click for subsequent inventory auctions.

The study suggests that impressions and clicks increased more for short searches than they did for long searches. That might suggest that a post-Instant world there will a trend to more short searches than before.

By helping users refine search queries through predicted search phrases, Google Instant appears to have changed user behavior and biased it towards shorter search phrases.

While broad-match terms still command about 70 percent of all impressions and about 47 percent of all clicks, exact-match and phrase-match terms gained ground after Instant was launched. overall broad-match costs have risen, while costs for exact-match terms have declined despite being accompanied by relatively more clicks.

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