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."

Moms are increasingly looking to online resources as her go-to for planning, shopping and cooking for that big Thanksgiving Dinner. We provide a month-by-month and then week-by-week look at search trends to help understand how moms prepare for this major holiday.

Product upgrades, and having the latest and greatest devices are top reasons consumers purchase new smartphones. Google has been following smartphone launch trends since 2010. We found that search predicts smartphone sales, with over 90% accuracy. In this 2012 Smartphone Launch Predictor study, we uncovered several tips to forecast product success. Here is a sampling:

• An extra 1,000 news stories in the weeks before launch will likely lead to a 9% boost in smartphone sales. Marketers should generate buzz for extended interest: Maximize press and marketing efforts early.
• A whopping 52% of purchase-related searches occur before launch (and over one third of general smartphone searches). Marketers should reach customers earlier in the pre-launch period.
• An extra 25,000 mobile searches will likely increase smartphone sales 17%. One month after launch, those searches boost sales 20%. Marketers should make sure to connect across screens, throughout the launch cycle.

Download the full study to learn all the tips to increase search and sales.

Social media has made the classic marketing/sales funnel obsolete. Viral referrals and customer evangelism now play a major role in purchase decisions, so savvy marketers need to engage consumers where it really makes a difference. In this report, Wildfire by Google's experts will walk you through a framework for today's social customer journey based on a model created by Forrester Research. You'll learn:

• How consumers interact with social media while on their journey to purchase
• Successful strategies for how brands can meet consumers at critical junctures along the way
• How real brands are doing it today

Did you know, there is more beer sold for Halloween then Super Bowl? Check out how consumers approach this holiday with search.

Are you dialing up your marketing efforts for the retail holiday season already? Google pooled its 2011 holiday learnings to develop this quick guide to highlight the most important retail holiday facts, key dates and search trends at a glance. A holiday marketer's 411.

In today's digital world, prospective patients are now active partners in their medical journeys as they move from "addiction" to "decision to treat" to "treatment" and finally to "recovery". Google engaged Compete to survey over 250 treatment center researchers to understand how digital drives research and ultimately appointments. Here are some key findings:

• 91% of patients say that making sure the treatment center accepts their healthcare plan is a top priority.
• 41% of patients took 2 weeks to research before scheduling an appointment and more than half visited at least 2 treatment center websites before converting.
• 37% of users who booked an appointment with a treatment center researched consumer reviews prior to booking.
• 57% of search paths are comprised of treatment and 25% of condition terms. Only 9% are treatment center branded.

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."

Today, people no longer see a line between online and offline shopping, and neither do smart retailers. This year online and offline shopping experiences are more seamless than ever before - across pricing, functionality, and promotions - making this the first "Nonline" holiday season. We partnered with Ipsos to uncover consumer shopping behaviors that advertisers can expect for holiday 2012:

• Online and offline shopping is blurring: 80% of shoppers will research online before making a purchase this season, and they switch devices to suit their needs. For example, 51% of shoppers will research online and then visit the store to purchase, while 17% will visit a store first and then purchase online. Another 32% will research online, visit store to view a product, then return online to purchase. In short, the shopper's journey looks less like a funnel and more like a flight map, and the lines between online and offline shopping experiences are blurring.
• People are shopping smarter: Shoppers are starting earlier and using more devices to inform their purchases. 85% of people shop for a gift on one device and then make their purchase on another. To do so, 45% will leave an item in the virtual shopping cart, 45% will send themselves an email or link, and 32% will conduct a new search on a new device.
• Trusted connections are coming online: It used to be that shoppers and merchants formed connections offline - a salesperson could spark a conversation with a shopper in the store. Now these connections are happening both online and offline. With YouTube and social networks, people are sharing their opinion on products not just with a group of friends, but with millions of people. 13% of shoppers plan to watch online videos to help with shopping research, and 48% will use tablets to read product reviews before purchasing.

Priceline.com wanted to cater to a growing global mobile device audience while increasing traffic and conversions. Priceline.com created a mobile-friendly site with current-location search, simplified content and larger buttons, and a more streamlined checkout. Using Google Mobile Ads to promote the site, Priceline.com saw these results:

• The mobile site's share of business grew 31%
• Increased the number of unique visitors by 13.9%, increased the average duration on the site by 45%, and tripled page views
• Mobile traffic increased 50% through Adwords

Getting mobile right is more important than ever, as we see how 1 in 6 people switching banks say a poor mobile banking experience prompted them to shop for a new bank. Explore this report to learn the importance of sequential and simultaneous device usage and how marketers can retain existing banking customers and acquire new ones.