The Five Search Marketing Trends To Know In 2018

Transcription

1 NOT LICENSED FOR DISTRIBUTION The Five Search Marketing Trends To Know In 2018 by Collin Colburn Why Read This Report Search marketing is a major part of a digital marketing strategy and it s important that B2C marketers know the trends affecting it. Forrester recently partnered with the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization (SEMPO) to survey marketers on their current challenges and opportunities. This report summarizes the five key trends learned from that data. Key Takeaways Change Is Afoot In Search Marketing Search marketers are changing what resources complete search tasks, how they are budgeting for search, and what channels they consider to be search. This will dramatically affect search marketing strategies going forward for B2C marketers, agencies, and vendors alike. FORRESTER.COM

2 by Collin Colburn with Mary Pilecki, David Novitzky, and Christine Turley Rethink Search Marketing In Light Of Five New Trends Forrester polled search marketers in two recent surveys and identified five trends that B2C marketers should consider. We partnered with the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization (SEMPO) to survey its members and questioned the client references provided during our 2017 Global Search Marketing Agencies Wave research process. 1 Trend No. 1: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Is No Longer Completely Outsourced Historically, brands outsourced SEO efforts to an agency because most companies lacked the skills, resources, and time to effectively manage their site s SEO. 2 But now marketers are empowered to start bringing parts or all of their SEO efforts in house. What you need to know. A whopping 63% of marketers responsible for their company s SEO program say they manage their efforts in-house. 3 That effort to insource SEO means that acquiring the right talent is tougher than ever. And it s not just companies with fully in-housed SEO that are adding resources to their team. In fact, client references from The Forrester Wave : Search Marketing Agencies, Q marketers that are actively using an agency to help manage their SEO are also increasing headcount for their SEO teams (see Figure 1). 4 What you should do about it. Companies are hiring more in-house talent for SEO because they believe it will make their SEO process more efficient and nimble. 5 For example, a marketer at an online university recently told us they like to use the insights and advice from their agency but prefer to keep their SEO in-house so they can more quickly act on those insights. But that doesn t mean you should post a position for an SEO analyst immediately. First, evaluate how you re managing for SEO today. If you are using an agency, consider hiring at least two full-time employees to manage what your agency is doing for you today. At the bare minimum, you should have someone who manages technical SEO (coding and auditing of the website) and content Forrester Research, Inc., 60 Acorn Park Drive, Cambridge, MA USA Fax: forrester.com 2018 Forrester Research, Inc. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. Forrester, Technographics, Forrester Wave, TechRadar, and Total Economic Impact are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. Unauthorized copying or distributing is a violation of copyright law.

3 SEO (helping create content that is search-engine friendly). If you are managing SEO internally, determine where you have gaps; ask yourself if technology, like an SEO platform, or an additional hire who possesses unique skills can fill those gaps. 6 FIGURE 1 Marketers Are Dedicating More Resources To SEO How many internal staff members work on SEO? (Include people who work on SEO full time and people who work on SEO as part but not all of their job) staff members 9% 5% 7 to 9 staff members 0% 2% 4 to 6 staff members 16% 16% 1 to 3 staff members 51% 63% None. We outsource everything to an agency or vendor. 13% 26% Base: 32 marketers (2017) and 61 marketers (2016) Note: Responses may not equal 100% due to rounding. Source: Forrester s Q Search Marketing Agencies Forrester Wave Customer Reference Online Survey and Forrester s Q Search Marketing Agencies Forrester Wave Online Survey Trend No. 2: Paid Search Spending Is Plateauing While paid search advertising has been a cornerstone of digital marketing since its inception, it is now moving from a leading role to a supporting role in the digital marketing mix. What you need to know. Paid search is still the king of the digital marketing mix, but its rate of growth is slowing down. 7 Many big budget advertisers that spent millions on Google search ads over the past 15 years have now hit the point of diminishing marginal returns and are looking to other channels for better return on their incremental dollars. That would explain why 49% of marketers managing their company s paid search efforts said that their spend on paid search ads would be stagnant in 2018 (see Figure 2). 8 2

4 What you should do about it. Look at where you re spending your paid search dollars today, and consider shifting dollars away from branded keyword terms into nonbranded keywords that could reach prospects earlier in the customer life cycle. 9 But for efficiency driven marketers: Determine alternative channels that your customers discover and use for information gathering, and invest in gaining visibility through outlets like Amazon or Pinterest. FIGURE 2 A Majority Of Marketers Are Capping Or Decreasing Their Paid Search Spend How do you expect your spend on paid search advertising to change over the next 12 months? Decrease 3% Stay the same 49% Increase 46% Base: 35 marketers Note: Not all answers are shown. Source: Forrester/SEMPO Q Global State Of Search And Digital Marketing Online Survey Trend No. 3: Amazon Is Now A Significant Player In Search Paid search generally means search ads on traditional search engines like Google or Bing. But as we mentioned, there are other discovery outlets, like Amazon, that marketers need to consider. And when it comes to a channel like Amazon, many consumer packaged goods (CPG) marketers would agree that Amazon is becoming part of their search marketing strategy. 10 What you need to know. Amazon has entered the advertising space, and marketers have started to buy up ads through its search ad tool, Amazon Marketing Services (AMS). 11 The ecommerce giant has cozied up with the major advertising holding companies to influence where search marketers invest their dollars. So far it is working: 39% of agencies said their clients are spending more on Amazon than a year ago. 12 3

5 What you should do about it. Consumer packaged goods and retail companies that sell products on Amazon should be optimizing their product pages on the ecommerce website so that they rank well for important keyword terms. To increase visibility of their products, those same marketers should consider testing advertising within Amazon.com, which might be more cost efficient than Google search advertising. A marketer at a major CPG firm told us, We see our spend on Amazon ads going up, and Google will likely stay the same. Trend No. 4: Marketers Don t Know How To Measure SEO While measurement is a challenge for marketers of many channels, some might be surprised to see it as a top challenge for SEO because SEO has been around so long. But it s true. Marketers admit they struggle to measure the success of their SEO programs, and the metrics they track are partially to blame. What you need to know. When asked about their challenges with SEO, marketers No. 1 answer was measurement: 66% cite measuring the ROI of their SEO efforts (see Figure 3). 13 This isn t that surprising when you consider the metrics marketers use to measure SEO. For instance, 73% of marketers measure the average rank of their site s pages, while only 48% measure revenue attributed from organic search. 14 What you should do about it. Stop measuring vanity metrics like page rank or number of inbound links to your site from other pages. Instead, begin measuring the number of conversions made on your site from organic search traffic and the number of work hours it takes your team to complete an SEO project. 15 4

6 FIGURE 3 Marketers Admit They Struggle To Effectively Measure SEO What are your organization s greatest challenges when managing your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts? (Choose up to five options) Measuring the ROI of our SEO efforts 66% Integration, attribution, and measurement with other online/offline marketing channels 49% Getting budget for SEO efforts 41% Dealing with the cannibalization of organic search by featured snippets, answer box, paid search, etc. Creating SEO-optimized content for our website Creating a companywide SEO strategy 29% 27% 27% Base: 41 marketers Note: The top six answers are shown. Source: Forrester/SEMPO Q Global State Of Search And Digital Marketing Online Survey Trend No. 5: Marketers Are Cautiously Curious About Voice Search Customer adoption of intelligent agents (IAs) like Alexa, Cortana, Google Assistant, and Siri has caused plenty of buzz about the future of search. 16 There s no question voice search will play a major role in how customers find and search for information in the future. Marketers are buying the hype but are unsure of how to apply trends in voice search to their marketing strategy. What you need to know. There are interesting differences in how marketers perceive the future versus how agencies and vendors perceive the same future. For example, 63% of agency and vendor respondents said voice search will be a key initiative in 2018, but only 30% of marketers said the same. 17 The reason for marketers lack of excitement? Only 7% of marketers think voice search will significantly impact their business in What you should do about it. Marketers needn t focus too intently on voice search right now because our research found that IAs today are unable to respond to complex asks or searches but that will change rapidly. In addition, customers are willing to use their IA to search for information. 19 Your to-do: Prepare now. Start thinking through questions your customers may verbally ask that are 5

7 relevant to your services or products, and study how they may differ from traditional keyed-in searches. Then audit your existing website and content assets to determine if you answer those potential questions customers might ask an IA. This will give your content marketing team ideas for new topics and align them better with your SEO program. Engage With An Analyst Gain greater confidence in your decisions by working with Forrester thought leaders to apply our research to your specific business and technology initiatives. Analyst Inquiry To help you put research into practice, connect with an analyst to discuss your questions in a 30-minute phone session or opt for a response via . Learn more. Analyst Advisory Translate research into action by working with an analyst on a specific engagement in the form of custom strategy sessions, workshops, or speeches. Learn more. Webinar Join our online sessions on the latest research affecting your business. Each call includes analyst Q&A and slides and is available on-demand. Learn more. Forrester s research apps for ios and Android. Stay ahead of your competition no matter where you are. Supplemental Material Survey Methodology Forrester/SEMPO Q Global State Of Search And Digital Marketing Online Survey was fielded to 295 marketing, vendor, and agency professionals. Forrester fielded the survey from November 2017 to January The respondents incentive included a complimentary copy of this report at the time of publication. 6

8 This survey used a group of respondents selected by SEMPO with expertise in search and digital marketing who likely had knowledge of their organization s search and digital marketing, and it is therefore not random. This data is not guaranteed to be representative of the population, and, unless otherwise noted, statistical data is intended to be used for descriptive and not inferential purposes. While nonrandom, the survey is still a valuable tool for understanding where users are today and where the search and digital marketing is headed. Forrester s Q Search Marketing Agencies Forrester Wave Customer Reference Online Survey was fielded to 45 marketing professionals who use a search marketing agency that is included in this Forrester Wave evaluation or outside of it. Vendors recruited the majority of these respondents to complete a survey about their satisfaction and use of their agency. Forrester fielded the survey from August 2017 to September Respondent incentives included a summary of the research results when the Forrester Wave was published. Forrester s Q Search Marketing Agencies Forrester Wave Online Survey was fielded to 77 search marketers who are client references of search marketing agencies participating in this Forrester Wave. Forrester fielded the survey during Q Exact sample sizes are provided on a questionby-question basis. This data is not guaranteed to be representative of the population, and, unless otherwise noted, statistical data is intended to be used for descriptive and not inferential purposes. While nonrandom, the survey is still a valuable tool for understanding where users are today and where the industry is headed. Endnotes 1 Source: Forrester/SEMPO Q Global State Of Search And Digital Marketing Online Survey and Forrester s Q Search Marketing Agencies Forrester Wave Customer Reference Online Survey. 2 We first started seeing marketers take control of SEO in-house in 2012, which resulted in greater demand for tools to help them manage SEO. See the Forrester report The Forrester Wave : SEO Platforms, Q Source: Forrester s Q Search Marketing Agencies Forrester Wave Customer Reference Online Survey. 5 Source: Through many inquiries with Forrester clients and research interviews, we have learned that firms who take part or all of their SEO program in-house have reduced cost and time to complete a project. 6 There are three main categories of SEO tools to help marketers. See the Forrester report Vendor Landscape: SEO Tools And Technologies. 7 Paid search spending in the US will grow to $50 billion by 2021, but its compound annual growth rate (CAGR) has slowed to 8%, which is the slowest rate we have seen for paid search. See the Forrester report US Digital Marketing Forecast: 2016 To We found that many marketers spend too much on branded keyword terms and end up missing potential customers earlier in the customer life cycle. See the Forrester report Paid Search And SEO Shouldn t Be Your Only Discovery Tools. 7

9 10 Amazon should be considered part of a CPG and retailer s search marketing strategy. See the Forrester report Use Amazon Search To Ignite Product Discovery. 11 During the 2017 holiday season, we saw CPG marketers spend anywhere between 10% to 30% of their search advertising budget with Amazon. See the Forrester report Holiday 2017: Amazon s Future In Advertising Begins Source: Forrester s Q Search Marketing Agencies Forrester Wave Customer Reference Online Survey. 15 See the Forrester report Search Marketing Metrics Are Too Much And Not Enough. 16 Voice search hype has exploded, but our research breaks through the hype to give marketers actionable advice. See the Forrester report Voice Search Will Change Customer Discovery Forever See the Forrester report Voice Search Will Change Customer Discovery Forever. 8

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