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IProspect Releases Search Engine User Attitudes Survey Findings
WebProNews
Staff Writer
2004-05-18
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
A survey conducted by iProspect has found that search engine click-through behavior can be predicted by gender, education and other factors. Meaning that by knowing the characteristics of your target audience you can improve and impact an online marketing campaign.
The characteristics that iProspect's survey highlights are:
* Gender
* Employment Status
* Education Level
* Frequency of Internet Use
* Years of Internet Experience
The survey discovered that women are more apt to click paid search advertising because they find it more relevant to their searches than do men.
By checking the 4 largest search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, and AOL) iProspect found that 43.1 percent of female respondents chose a paid search advertisement as the most relevant result to a sample query, compared to just 34.6 percent of men who selected a paid search ad.
Sites that target women include the highly competitive cosmetic, home fashion, personal care and online toy markets; examples range from Avon.com to PotteryBarn.com.
Another interesting tidbit that the survey revealed is that full time employees find natural search results to be more relevant than do part time employees or non-employed searchers: Nearly 65% of fully-employed respondents chose a natural search result as the most relevant result to a sample query, compared to users who are employed part-time at 60.8 percent and just 55.1 percent of unemployed users.
"Based on the survey results, it was obvious that Internet users identified natural search results as more relevant to their searches than paid search ads - and that was to be expected," said iProspect CEO Fredrick Marckini. "But because of the roughly 60-40 percent split between natural search engine penetration and paid search ads, it was equally clear that failure to be found in both types of search results would be costly. If your website is only found in one or the other type of result, and your competitor is found in both, you're ceding either 40 or 60 percent of potential traffic, conversion and online business."
Education also plays a role how users find relevance in search results. Results show that 64.8 percent of college graduates choose natural search results as being more relevant, as opposed to paid search ads. That number falls to 56.2 percent of non-college graduates.
Another factor is the amount of time a user spends on the internet. 65% of those surveyed who use the internet 4 or more times a day find search engine results to be relevant. The number drops to 56% for those who use the internet less than 4 times a day. Meaning they would be more apt to click paid search ads.
Not only does daily usage factor in to these percentages, but accumulated time does as well. 63.2% of respondents that have more than 6 years of internet use find search engine results to be relevant.
As the amount of accumulated time lowers, so does the amount of people who pick natural results over paid search ads. For those who have 4-6 years of internet use, 60.6% find relevancy in SERPs. Only 54 percent of users who had less than three years of online experience chose natural search results over paid advertisements.
"Our sense is that there is a correlation between education level, frequency of Internet use and years of Internet experience that indicates that the more savvy the Internet user, the more likely they are able to differentiate between a paid search advertisement and a natural search result," stated Marckini. "As a result, that percentage of the population who avoid advertising in general may be reluctant to click on paid search advertisements in greater numbers, regardless of their feeling about the ad's relevance."
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