Measure & Analyze / studies

A brand manager can't be there for every single zero moment today. Marc Vanlerberghe, Android's Senior Director of Global Marketing, shares his solution in this ZMOT case study, "I spend almost 100% of my time building and arming an 'Android Army' of fans. My job as a marketer is to cultivate that group and arm them with the right facts and the right things to say on our behalf at ZMOT."

MSC Industrial Supply, a leading American direct marketer and distributor of products for metalworking and maintenance, distributes more than 600,000 items. MSC worked with Rosetta, an interactive agency, to find ways to drive incremental sales and expand their ad coverage. To address their extensive product offering, they used Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) which uses the natural search index of the website and generates highly relevant ads to match search queries not already covered by existing keywords.

Matt Wilkinson, director of search and media at Rosetta, shares, "There are hundreds of thousands of variations that someone could search [for MSC's more than half a million products]. Dynamic Search Ads is a way to start catching those long-tail keyword variations automatically."

With the help of DSA, Rosetta has been able to exceed ROI goals and efficiently scale MSC's online marketing. It was the ability to optimize and maintain the campaign over time that has led to significant revenue growth.

Zoro Tools, an online supplier of over 250,000 industrial products, had limited resources and a massive product assortment. They had been using Adwords all along, but was intrigued with Google Product Listing Ads (PLA) because it allowed them to advertise every product.

As Zoro Tools expanded its PLA budget, the company saw ROI for PLA rise 49%. Over the same period, conversion rates rose 17% while cost-per-acquisition fell 21%.

Zoro Tools President Yugo Kanazawa shares, "We're not in the business of keyword-bid management; we're in the business of serving customers. [Google Product Listing Ads] allows us to focus our efforts on what's most important."

This Google whitepaper examines the changes in video gamer digital behaviors through the lens of millions of tablet, desktop, and mobile searches. It also explores the meaningful link that exists between online engagement and game sales. Our research uncovers the following key trends:

• More engagement: searches per gamer increased 20% year over year.
• More research: 4 in 10 searches occur before a game releases.
• More mobile: 1 in 10 searches happen on mobile devices.
• More sales: 84% of game sales can be predicted by search clicks.

The Public Broadcasting System’s interactive arm helps individual PBS producers and local PBS stations create and promote each section within PBS.org for programs. Their web analytics tools had been installed, but proved difficult to maintain and use. PBS needed a cohesive system across the entire enterprise, and for this they turned to Google Analytics. With the help of LunaMetrics, a Google Analytics Certified Partner, PBS was able to:

• Implement a solution, customized by LunaMetrics, that would allow producers of individual programs to see only the data on those pages and microsites that related to their own shows.
• Enable reporting that is robust, tailored and meaningful. Stakeholders are able to use analytics to inform critical and timely business decisions on a day-to-day basis.
• Analysis of search engine trends led to an increase in PBS traffic by 30% during the first year after implementation. PBS also used conversion funnel data to optimize the registration path in PBSKids, increasing conversions by one-third.

Air Show Buzz (ASB) is a hub for air show and aviation enthusiasts. They needed to measure video views, online sales, the usage of a downloaded application, and the impact of social media. On top of that, they wanted to correlate offline events and activities to mobile website usage and branded merchandise sales. These effects were not being captured by their current analytics. With the help of Empirical Path, a Google Analytics Certified Partner, they were able to:

• Validate the investment in regional events using detailed geographic analysis available within Google Analytics.
• Track the downloaded Adobe AIR™ application, providing insights around the evolution of that product.
• Revealed the impact of popular content on sales which led ASB to employ strategies that emphasized the right content, ultimately leading directly to revenue increases.
• Customize around the three key functional areas – Executives, Product, and Marketing – the insights they needed to make decisions.

For a company that delivers curated advice from shopping experts to save shoppers money, measuring site and product performance is critical. SHOP.com was experiencing challenges with their current analytics tool and engaged Blast Advanced Media, a Google Analytics Certified Partner to help align the transition against strategy. Here are some of the wins SHOP.com experienced with the move to Google Analytics:

• A custom tracking strategy was implemented that would both meet SHOP.com's analysis objectives and provide for easy access to reports containing actionable insight.
• Integration of multiple Google AdWords accounts with their Google Analytics profiles to provide cost and conversion data that was previously not available.
• The transition to a custom Google Analytics configuration met all of their existing reporting needs as well as met new reporting goals that weren’t previously available. SHOP.COM gained better visibility into their many SEM traffic sources and millions of products in their marketplace.

Footwear shoppers have a ton of choices these days of where to buy, and with all the online deals, it's a cutthroat environment. Learn about how these shoppers cross-shop to better understand how to beat your competitors at the race:

• Among the race between branded sites versus retailer sites, a branded site can lose up to 78% of shoppers to retailers
• As some examples, more than 75% of all shoppers who had considered Kohl's or JCPenney as their outlet of choice, DID end up buying there. More than half of all shoppers who had once considered FootLocker or Nordstrom along the path to purchase, actually converted elsewhere
• At the end of the day, many shoppers are undecided on a brand or retailer and they shop around. Develop search and display strategies to draw them in and keep them there to convert

How did the display and rich media advertising business fare in the U.S. in 2009? Insights from DoubleClick can help you compare your performance to industry norms, including:

• How much consumers are interacting with different types of ads
• How interaction and engagement are split across industry verticals
• How often video ads are watched to completion

What's the value of consumers who visit auto manufacturer sites but don't take action on the site? This study between Google and Compete found:

• 3 out of 4 search referrals to auto manufacturer sites result in a key purchase indicator (KPI) immediately or within 30 days
• Nearly half of them are still in the process of buying a car
• The study found that they may be more likely than KPI customers to find auto manufacturers' sites confusing

For the first time ever the majority of purchasers does online research before purchasing. The online purchase share shows limited growth for most products, however online research grows strongly and consistently across all countries and products.

Key Findings

• Online purchase mainly grows in travel and media, however online research grows strongly and consistently across all countries and products.
• Online research grows equally strong amongst online and offline purchasers and is consistent amongst countries and products as well.
• Products of higher value show both more online research and more online purchase than lower value products.

This study looks at mobile, tablet and internet usage across five key markets USA, UK, Japan, Germans, and France.

Key findings:

• An immense increase in smartphone usage across all key markets year over year – particularly in UK (+21%) – and a decrease in feature phone usage.
• Smartphone penetration is now at: US 44%, UK 51%, France 38%, Germany 29%, Japan 20%. Tablet usage also continues to grow in all five markets, with the largest increase in the US (now 13%) and UK (now 11%).
• Netbooks (like the Chromebook), purely designed to access the web, are on the rise especially in Germany, Japan, and US.
• In all key markets, almost every sixth household already uses internet enabled flatscreen TV devices.
• Internet penetration is at a high level in all key markets (around 80%) - PCs and tablets are mainly used for internet access.
• Across all five markets, smartphone usage is more prevalent in younger, male and highly educated segments as well as in larger households with children.