According to Google, 80 percent of consumers today are having difficulty making decisions because of the deluge of information or options available to them. This has had a tremendous effect on the path to purchase and created what is called the “messy middle.” The messy middle is a noisy space between triggers and purchase, and this is where consumers are either won or lost.
“This complex and emotional journey begins when consumers look for more details about a product or service, which can be overwhelming given the abundance of available information. This is where people lean on Google Search to decode their decision-making process,” said the tech giant in a statement.
Seventy-three percent of people say Google Search is their No. 1 most preferred touchpoint when looking for relevant information across all categories.
During the recent Decoding Decisions event, Google invited individuals to discuss insights and best practices that can inspire brands to use Search in order to win customers.
Rachel Tan, Head of Digital and E-Commerce Luxe at L’Oréal, talked about how the pandemic has changed people’s buying habits. For skincare, they would do research before committing to making a purchase.
At Kiehl’s, Tan and her team partnered with Google and their own agency to create keywords across eight weeks so the brand would appear in searches.
In what they call “Experiment 1,” the brand used keywords like “Kiehl’s avocado mask” and “Kiehl’s serum.”
In “Experiment 2,” they added popular and broad search terms that often have a high reach with the product keywords in their campaigns. These included phrases like “best anti aging for men” and “skincare for oily skin.”
The results were amazing.
The Kiehl’s web site saw a 20-percent increase in traffic. Of these, 80 percent were new visitors using generic keywords. There was also a 27 percent uplift in sales and an 18-percent increase in overall revenues
“This experiment really helped us see how generic search keywords can help expand reach and capture potential consumers,” said Tan.
In 2020, Nestlé’s Maggi, which is known for its seasonings, launched a project to improve the functionality, recipe service and total user experience of its web site.
“Search was at the heart of our plan because it’s an integral part of our consumers’ cooking journey as they plan their meals. We used cross-platform audience lists to drive video viewers of the Maggi Philippines YouTube channel to the web site,” said Seaneen Arcilla, Service Pillar Lead, Food and Dairy Culinary Business Unit at Nestlé.
The campaign was effective in driving results. Metrics showed that the cross platform approach of re-engaging video viewers on Search resulted in seven times higher click-through rate and 3.5 times higher conversion rate. In addition, 40 percent of web site traffic came from remarketing lists.
“Getting real-time consumer insights from our web site and turning consumer actions to marketing initiatives to drive business growth for Maggi enabled us to decode how consumers make purchasing decisions. This was pivotal to make our approach more personalized and data-inspired,” said Arcilla.
Indonesia is one of the largest mobile markets in the world and it is characterized by the high degree of competition in the industry with new launches practically every month.
For the launch of vivo’s X series in 2021, vivo Mobile Indonesia explored the possibilities of further maximizing their presence in the market.
“We wanted to be there throughout the consumer journey starting from teaser phase then launch phase to post-launch. We also wanted to see which channel is actually contributing the most to our total conversions during the campaign,” Ferzy Ferlian, Digital Marketing Director at vivo Mobile Indonesia.
Vivo Mobile Indonesia decided to partner with Google by running Google Blast for high impact during the campaign period. They also activated tracking using Campaign Manager to identify the efficiency of each channel. Campaign Manager 360 is an ad management and ad serving solution that helps agencies and advertisers manage the entire scope of digital advertising.
The results, said Ferlian, were “fantastic.”
About 46 percent of total conversions were contributed by Search campaigns.
“This has enabled us to use Search effectively to drive impact across our business. We know that our customer was exploring and evaluating whether our smartphone was right for them, and when they choose to purchase, Search was crucial. It turned that purchase intent into sales. Advertisers need to think about digital traffic now, not only physical store or offline traffic,” said Ferlian.
Vivo Mobile Indonesia further optimized its campaigns by adapting Image Extensions and this led to an increase to a 15 percent mobile CTR (click to rate) while reducing their CPC (Cost Per Click) by 4 percent.
Other speakers during the Decoding Decisions event were journalist, author and public speaker Malcolm Gladwell and Sapna Chadha, vice president for marketing-Google India, Southeast Asia and South Asia.
“In a world where decision-making is more difficult than ever before, people are searching for answers. That’s why we are humbled that billions of consumers turn to Google to search for answers every single day. This pushes us to continuously improve to provide people with the most relevant and helpful information from the most trustworthy and authoritative sources to help them make better decisions,” said Sapna Chadha.