Web Video and Paid Search Engine Marketing

Web Video and Search Marketing Working for Small Business

Seems more and more small businesses are catching on to the power of Video on their websites. Combined with the use of paid search advertising, few other segments saw as significant growth in the last quarter of 2009.

Despite the current economic climate, SMBs nationwide significantly increased their search engine advertising budgets last quarter, according to the second installment of the quarterly Web Visibility report.

In Q4 2009, the average small business advertiser spent $2,149 on search advertising – an increase of 30 percent over Q3 2009 and 111 percent over Q4 2008. Additionally, conversion rates, keywords, and video implementation all have increased quarter over quarter and year over year. The report also examined the search landscape abroad, analyzing data from more than 10,000 United Kingdom (UK) advertisers.

Other report highlights:

• * The share of spending was unchanged on Yahoo! and Bing in Q4 2009. Some spend was shifted from Google to Ask as advertiser resellers sought lower cost sources of traffic.
• * Click-through rates (CTR) and cost-per-click (CPC) did not change significantly on the search engines on a quarter over quarter (QoQ) basis. Bing* maintained the highest CTR while Google maintained the highest CPC.
• * UK small business advertisers spent significantly less than US advertisers in Q4 2009 at an average of $183 per advertiser. UK keyword portfolios were also much smaller at an average of 26 root keywords per advertiser.
• * UK click-through rates (CTR) were significantly lower than in the US in Q4 2009 but varied similarly – Bing had the highest CTR and Yahoo! the lowest.
• * UK cost-per-click rates (CPCs) were about 1/5 of CPCs in the US in Q4 2009. Google had the highest CPCs in the UK just as in the US.

It seems small business advertisers spent more than twice as much on paid search and nearly 4 times as many of them reported having video on their website vs. a year ago.

Here are some of the highlights from the report:

Web Video Past and Future

In fact, “video capability” was the single fastest growing feature that small businesses added to their website. In the same quarter of the previous year, only 5% of small business websites had video. In Q4 of 2009, that number climbed to 19%–four times as many. That’s rapid growth for just one year.

I would not be surprised if the number of websites using video continued to grow significantly in 2010. At AdQuantify, we have have touting the value of video for small business for years. Video is engaging and easy to absorb. Rapidly video is becoming one of the most used means of informing prospective customers via associated search campaigns. If your competitors are using video and your are not, perhaps its time to make it happen and tell the world way your product and or service it superior.

Regarding The Use of Search Engines…

According to the report: Small businesses are rooting for the under dogs and willing to try Google’s main competition (Bing, Ask, and Yahoo) for advertising purposes. The “CTR” or Click Through Rates from 2008 to 2009 may be indicative of reason for small businesses to opt to advertise on Bing and Yahoo. In 2009, the CTR for Google increased over 2008 by approximately 32%. However, Yahoo reported and increase of 123% and Bing reported increased CRT upwards of 109% as compared to the year prior. Google is still the undeniable leader in terms of both on Cost-Per-Click, which can matter greatly assuming similar conversions.

In summary, spending by small businesses on paid search advertising increased to an average of $2,149 — which is an increase of 111% over Q4 2008 and 30% higher than Q3 2009. Again we are not surprised by these number and expect continued increases in subsequent quarters.

According to Kirsten Mangers, CEO of Web Visible:

“These numbers show increased confidence by small businesses in using search to gain leads – and increased ability to turn those leads into sales.”

Raising Conversion Rates

If it is garnering the attention of penny pinching small business owners, it must be working. Thus by the same measure, the use of web video is hotter than every. It exceedingly difficult for small businesses to simply “brand” themselves online. Most small companies do not have the financial wherewithal to continue with any form of advertising that did produce direct and immediate.

Correspondingly these signs of grow are particularly telling. It demonstrates the efficacy of online advertising for small businesses. Generally small business owners do not make marketing decisions simply based on gut feelings. Focus is generally less about the novelty of the medium and more about measured effectiveness. Most importantly marketing efforts must be quantifiable to the bottom line.

The conversion stats are pretty impressive, with 35.5% of clicks resulting in conversion actions (versus 32% for the previous quarter and 26.6% for the same quarter of the previous year).

This may just be an indication of small business advertisers are becoming more and more sophisticated over time when it comes to tracking and measuring online advertising effectiveness.

More small businesses are spending advertising dollars online, implementing web video and targeting search campaigns… which in turn may be resulting to increased click through rates and higher conversion rates. This is affirmation that the advice we’ve been giving for years is being widely implemented and is proving efficacious.

Lessons Learned regard Video and Paid Search for Small Businesses:

1) Get video on your website. There’s not a single business I’ve met that can’t find a way to use video to improve customer relations, branding, or profits. When small businesses are racing to get their websites video-capable, you know it has officially moved from gimmicky entertainment to a legitimate business tool.

2) Remove the blinders and consider using going beyond Google for some of your search ad spend. The click-through-rates may be rising faster on these engines, and there is certainly evidence to suggest that conversions for certain types of small businesses are higher on the secondary engines than on Google. But at the very least: try advertising on search engines!

3) Finally, don’t let your advertising efforts and your new found passion for video blind you from the most important conversion piece in the entire chain: your own website. Make it video capable, make it pretty, and make it useful. While video and search can be huge wranglers of traffic to your site, they are only part of the conversion process. You haven’t really helped your business until the conversion action takes place.

Search and video will definitely work to help market your business online. But they are only pieces of the puzzle. As most small business owners know all too well, at the end of the day you still have to have an attractive, useful product or service. If you skip that step… all the fancy web marketing in the world won’t save you.