Hitwise Search Brand Management White Paper Provides Insight for Brand Marketers

NEW YORK, April 19, 2006 – Millions of dollars are spent each year on brand advertising and brand tracking, the shift to the Internet coupled with the growth in search has introduced a host of new challenges and opportunities. As the search engine marketing industry has grown there is little information that exists on the role of brand and search until now. Hitwise, the leading online competitive intelligence service, has released the Hitwise Search Brand Management White Paper that outlines best practices for monitoring brand traffic, protecting brands online, bidding on brands and online brand tracking.

The Hitwise Search Brand Management White Paper is based on analysis conducted in February 2006 among 30 leading online brands in the Travel, Retail, and Business & Finance categories defining best practices for search engine brand management and tracking brand strength online. As today’s users are increasingly searching by brand name, these results often end with a brand’s competitors among the first sponsored results. One of the paper’s key findings shows that an average of 85 percent of brand name searches resulted in a visit to one of the brand owner’s websites. The remaining 15 percent of visits went to competitors, affiliates and price comparison websites, underscoring the importance of managing your brand through search online.

“The fact that one in seven brand searches does not end up at that brand’s website demonstrates just how competitive it is to do business on the Internet,” said LeeAnn Prescott, Senior Research Analyst at Hitwise and author of the Search Brand Management White Paper. “Understanding where traffic from brand related searches goes, and how competitors and affiliates are capitalizing on brand search terms will allow online marketers to optimize their campaigns, keyword lists, marketing promotions and affiliate relationships to gain a larger share of traffic.”

Understanding where traffic from brand related searches goes, and how competitors and affiliates are capitalizing on brand search terms will allow brand owners to optimize their campaigns, keyword lists, marketing promotions and affiliate relationships to gain a larger share of traffic. The Hitwise Search Brand Management White Paper answers how consumers are thinking, how they are shopping and let’s you know who is benefiting from what brands.

Hitwise Research shows that Internet users are increasingly searching by brand – 75 of the top 100 search terms across all categories in February 2006 contained brand names, an increase of 17 percent versus February 2005. An example of how you can understand consumer awareness of your brand is through Hitwise Search Intelligence and Charting which allows marketers to directly compare online brand strength (measured by the share of internet searches) to competitors, providing a measure of top-of-mind awareness of a brand. This is done through Search Term Share, which refers to the share of all internet searches for a particular keyword or search phrase. For example the chart below shows the weekly market share of all US internet searches in 2005 for three leading car brands, ‘toyota’, ‘honda’ and ‘nissan’.

The chart illustrates that the brand names ‘toyota’ and ‘honda’ received a similar share of searches throughout the year and have similar seasonal trends. The term ‘nissan’ receives a smaller volume of searches and did not experience the same spikes in volume in late August - early September 2005. The spikes in traffic likely reflect promotions and other marketing activities.

Charting brand searches over time offers insight into whether searches for a brand are increasing or decreasing over time and at predictable times of year. The relative online strength of the key brand term compared to competitors and whether peaks in searches are often associated with promotions and campaigns.

If you would like to learn more about this topic, you can request a copy of the Hitwise Search Brand Management White Paper here:

http://www.hitwise.com/registration-page/hitwise-white-paper-best-practices-for-search-engine-brand-management.php

Contact:

For media inquiries or to schedule an analyst interview, please contact Matt Tatham: matt.tatham@hitwise.com; (212) 380 2939.

About Hitwise:

Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Each day, Hitwise monitors how more than 25 million Internet users interact with over 500,000 websites across 160 industry categories.

By monitoring more people, more websites, more often, Hitwise provides marketers with timely and actionable marketing insights on how their online presence compares to competitive websites.  Companies use this information to maximize the return on their online investment, in efforts such as affiliate programs, search marketing, online advertising, content development and lead generation.

Hitwise collects Internet usage information via a combination of ISP data partnerships and opt-in panels, and complies with local and international privacy legislation as audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Founded in 1997, Hitwise is a privately held company, headquartered in New York City and operates in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. 

More information about the Hitwise Competitive Intelligence service is available at www.hitwise.com.

For up to date analysis on online trends, please visit the Hitwise Intelligence-Analyst Weblogs at weblogs.hitwise.com.