GLOBAL SURVEY

Global eCommerCe Site SearCh SurveyTop Missed Marketing Opportunities for Retailers Revealed

sli-systems.com

Key Findings: Site Search is Among Retailers’ Top Three Priorities for 2014, yet many eCommerce Marketers Lack Resources and Know-How to Use Search to Significantly Enhance their Marketing Programs

57%

50%

IntROdUctIOn

How well do you know what your customers want from your business on a daily basis? How quickly can you identify trends that might impact your sales? Even though this information is vital to an effective go-to-market strategy, chances are you’re overlooking an important tool that offers such insights about customer behavior: your on-site search.

The information contained in your site search reports can help you dramatically improve the ROI of your marketing campaigns, simply by revealing the terms people use to search your site and the items they’re most interested in. This rich data can then be used across many of your other programs – including advertising, public relations and email campaigns. Monitoring these reports regularly is equally important, as behaviors can change as rapidly. Agility in giving customers what they want is a factor in long- term success.

Summary of Survey FindingsAccording to a recent survey of 160 global eCommerce professionals, conducted by SLI Systems, businesses are missing significant opportunities to improve the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns – largely because they do not tap into the wealth of customer information in their site search systems. While the survey shows that site search is one of online retailers’ top three priorities for 2014 (among their eCommerce platform, SEO and mobile initiatives), 57% of those surveyed say they do not currently use site search reports and information to enhance marketing programs. Additionally, 50% of retailers say they are not using site search data or analytics to enhance any of their business offerings or processes. These findings demonstrate a significant missed opportunity for retail marketers in improving brand visibility, customer engagement and ultimately sales.

Among the minority of eCommerce brands that are utilizing search data in their marketing campaigns, only 25% said they integrate site search data into email marketing campaigns to better customize offers for customers. Of the respondents, 27% have created search-engine optimized landing pages populated with site search results and custom banners. Additionally, 13% are taking advantage of site search to power mobile search, and only 11% said they are integrating site search with various social media channels to improve amplification of marketing programs.

So why aren’t more retailers doing more with search? As revealed in the survey, 50% of respondents said they have limited resources, while nearly 30% said they simply don’t know how to use site search data effectively – and 10% said their existing site search solution doesn’t allow for integration with marketing programs. However, these eCommerce professionals believe that they could do a better job of improving their marketing efforts through site search, and recognize that site search usage directly relates to higher conversions.

What can eCommerce marketers do to reverse this trend? Given the reasons mentioned above, it’s possible that retailers simply need to be better educated about the variety of opportunities that await them where site search data can have a greater impact. When asked which site search features they have already implemented to augment the relevancy of results, the majority of retailers cited they have not implemented features such as Auto-complete with graphics (55%), Mouse-over pop-ups (59%), Personalized Search History (64%), Refinements (43%) or a Floating Search Bar (80%). Most retailers are merely relying on site search features they ‘do’ have like Auto-complete (62%) and Refinements (43%) to do the job, a significant ‘miss’ for these retailers.

of retailers say they do not currently use site search reports and informa-tion to enhance marketing programs

of retailers say that limited resources prevent them from doing more with site search data

The good news is, nearly half (47%) are planning to incorporate more features, functionality and data gleaned from site search to enhance marketing programs in the coming new year. This should be a fairly simple and straight-forward task – as long as the site search solution is robust enough to provide this type of actionable data.

USE cASES OF SItE SEARch FOR MARkEtInG

This survey shows that retailers understand and are seeing significant results from their site search pages, with 40% saying their site search pages convert at a 2-4x higher rate than standard navigation pages. In addition to understanding the general benefits of advanced site search, the following businesses have made effective use of their search solution for marketing purposes.

custom Landing Pages Fuel display, Retargeting and MoreJelly Belly, an SLI Systems customer, has reaped the benefits of integrating site search data into marketing for its line of gourmet jelly beans and candies. For example, Jelly Belly makes sure that the most commonly used keywords by customers are incorporated into press releases, marketing materials and other content. Jelly Belly also uses site search data to “tune” search results – for example, placing popular products near the top of site search listings – and creating custom site navigation pages for popular product categories.

For a Cinco de Mayo promotion earlier this year, Jelly Belly used search data to create customized landing pages with recipes for search terms “tres leches cake” and “Mexican hot chocolate,” showcasing special groupings of jelly bean flavors. The URLs for these dedicated landing pages were then used in display advertising, retargeting ads, and emails – all stemming from the fact that Jelly Belly’s site search revealed an increased interest in those particular terms. The result was an 85% increase in open rates for the direct email campaign.

Site Search data Guides Google AdWords StrategyParty Supplies Delivered strives to ensure that top searches on its eCommerce site have a strong presence in Google AdWords. Search data from SLI’s Learning Navigation and Learning Search reveal that items that are moved to the top of results (or top sellers) generally have a strong click-through rate. As Ian MacDonald of Party Supplies Delivered explained, “if the items are performing well on our website, we want to drive more customers to our site who are using search engines to find that merchandise.”

MacDonald described other ways his team uses site search data, including always staying abreast of the site’s “Top Search Keywords” to keep on eye on demand trends. Additionally, the marketing team keeps a constant eye on poor-performing search terms, so they can quickly address poor searches by adding new synonyms or re-ordering results by promoting, demoting or suppressing certain products.

47% of retailers plan to use site search data in their marketing programs in 2014

custom Landing Pages are high SEO Performers Motorcycle Superstore, a leading retailer of motorcycle gear and accessories, has used site search data to create organic search landing pages for popular search terms. For instance, when someone performed a search on Google using a specific keyword and clicked on a Motorcycle Superstore listing, they were taken to a product detail page populated with a merchandising banner showcasing other site search results for that keyword.

Specifically, when someone searched Google for “Bell Helmet Rally” and clicked a link to Motorcycle Superstore’s detail page they would see one style of a Bell Rally Helmet plus a banner on the page containing other Bell motorcycle helmets – the top results that would show up in a site search for the same term. This approach helped surface a broader range of products than the customer would have otherwise seen – a useful tactic if the original product was out of stock or not a best seller. The custom landing pages gave the retailer a significant boost: an average conversion lift of 2-5% for the items featured in the banner. Also, the site search results and products featured on these pages have consistently appeared in the top four most-clicked merchandising method rankings on the site.

These are just a few examples of ways that retailers are using site search to fuel higher performing marketing campaigns. There are many more ways this data can be used to improve your email marketing, social media, and other programs. You can find a variety of retail case studies on SLI’s website sli-systems.com/customers/case-studies.

FULL SURVEY FIndInGS

1. In what country is your company headquartered?Le

ss th

an $

1M15

.7%

$50M

+17

.0%

$1M

- <

$10M

30.1

%

Pre

fer

not t

o sa

y16

.3%

$10M

- <

$50M

20.9

%

2. What is your company’s total online revenue?

3. What percentage of your company’s business is conducted online?

100%

25%

- 4

9%

75%

- 9

9%

Und

er 2

5%

50%

- 7

4%

14.8

%

14.8

%

24.2

%

34.2

%

12.1

%

55.5% U.S./Canada

23.5% Australia/New Zealand

15.7% UK

2.6% AsiaPac (non-AUS/NZ)

2.6% Europe (non-UK)

4. Please rank your top 3 priorities for your ecommerce site in 2014

5. Please rank your top 3 priorities for choosing a site search solution

SEO

eCommerce Platform

Site Search

Mobile

Customer-focused Analytics

Recommendations

Content Management

Security

CRM

Payment Processing

1

2

3

4

6

9

5

8

7

10

Responses resulted in the following ranked order

Relevance of results

Ease of Use

Total Cost of Ownership

Ease of Implementation

Merchandising Features

Customization

1

2

3

4

6

5

Responses resulted in the following ranked order

6. Which of these site search features do you already have or are you planning on adding/improving in 2014?

7. how do you use your site search data (keyword reports, most popular items, etc.) to enhance your other marketing programs?

I currently don’t use site searchdata for marketing programs

I integrate site search data into ouremail marketing campaigns

I create SEO landing pages populated with site search results/custom banners

I integrate site searchresults/banners into retargeting ads

I use our regular site search topower our mobile search

I integrate site searchresults/banners into display ads

I integrate site search with various social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.)

56.9%

11.1%

13.1%

24.8%

10.5%

11.1%

26.8%

Auto Complete

Auto Complete with Graphics

Mouse-over Pop-ups

Quick View Windows

Refinements

Personalized Search History

Ajax

A/B Testing

Floating Search Bar

62.5% 18.4% 19.1%

20.9% 25.0% 54.1%

42.6% 19.6% 37.8%

28.2% 16.8% 55.0%

15.9% 20.0% 64.1%

31.9% 16.0% 52.1%

21.2% 28.8% 50.0%

7.4% 12.8% 79.7%

27.2% 13.6% 59.2%

Already have Will add in 2014 Don’t have

8. do you plan to incorporate site search data into your marketing efforts in the coming year?

9. If you’re not currently using site search to enhance other marketing campaigns, why are you not doing this?

My site search doesn’t allow this 10.0%

I’m not sure how to do it 26.7%

13.3%

Limited resources

Not a priority

50.0%

Yes

No

Unsure

10. Are you using site search data (or data analytics) to enhance any of the following business drivers?

11. do you plan to incorporate site search data into your marketing efforts this holiday season?

Inventory Selection

Supply Chain Visibility

Dynamic Pricing

Predictive Analytics

None of the Above

All of the Above

Customer Service

28.4%

7.8%

4.3%

5.0%

17.7%

49.6%

26.2%

36.9% Yes

35.6% No

27.7% Unsure

About SLI SYStEMSSLI Systems’ learning platform provides customized site search, navigation, merchandising, SEO and analytics solutions that improve usability and conversions on your eCommerce site.To learn more visit sli-systems.com or email discovery@sli-systems.com

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