In my Search Engine Land article earlier this month, I talked about the growing importance of behaviorally-targeted search – specifically how businesses should take advantage of search engine algorithms that incorporate user demographics, last used search terms, past online purchases, and other factors to help reach their target consumers.
Now a group of marketing agencies including Wunderman, BrandAsset Consulting, Zaaz and Compete have published an interesting study that looks at the shopping habits and brand preferences of Google, Yahoo, Bing search users. According to their results, individual search engines attract different types of users and yield different types of results – opening up the question of whether businesses need to also tailor their search marketing strategies to each of the major search portals.
The research found that the demographic and psychographic profile of each loyal search engine user is different. For example, the study found that Bing users, “tend to be mostly from the tip of the adoption curve (innovators and early adopters) where Yahoo! and Google’s passengers tend to be middle majority.”
Additionally, the research found that different search engines are more influential than others in driving consumers to visit, shop, and purchase products and services in different sales categories. For example, the study found that Bing users are more likely than others to visit, shop, and ultimately purchase items at Walmart than Google and Yahoo users. Meanwhile, Google users are more likely to purchase travel-related products and services than Bing and Yahoo users. (Click here for more).
I agree with others who have suggested that the results of this study might be a stretch – and that it makes assumptions about the type of consumers that use each of the major search engines. That said, I wouldn’t discount its results so quickly. What’s important is that we keep an open mind about user behavior and how different consumers are using various search services, tools, and platforms to access business information. In doing so, we’ll be better adept to provide the most targeted advertising for our clients, improve user experience and stay ahead of the competition.
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