The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article: June 2007, Volume 6, Issue 6
Personalized Service: From the Coffee Shop to Online Search
by Arpana Tiwari, Orgainic Search Operations, iProspect
I admit it. I love the service I get at my favorite coffee shop. Every morning when I walk in, I don’t have to say a word – I get served what I want: a medium caramel macchiato with a shot of vanilla. How does the coffee man know what I want? Because he’s paid attention to my requests over time and used that information to understand my preferences. On top of that, if there’s a new coffee flavor or biscotti he thinks I might like, he’ll tell me about it. Talk about a superior customer experience!
The result? I end up having a higher opinion of the coffee shop because they are able to anticipate my needs and present me with personalized options. I have one less thing to think about and would not inconvenience myself by going to any other coffee shop.
So what does my daily “Cup o’ Joe” have to do with search? More than you might think.
Such personalized service is no longer limited to your favorite neighborhood haunt. Today, personalized search offers much the same.
Online search portals are catching on.
Personalized search determines user intent from extensive analysis of user profiles, ongoing assimilation of individual search behavior, and tracking user participation in online communities. And it is catching on big time. In fact, in the last few months, all of the major players have launched personalized search offerings: iGoogle, Yahoo! MyWeb, and MSN’s Start.com. Moreover, research is continuously being conducted by the major search portals to use online interest to shape identities for personalized offerings.
Clearly, the flurry of activity with personalized search promises to take it beyond user profiling and data mining to gauging intent from online searcher interest, user participation, and session information.
How can search marketers take advantage of the growing adoption of personalized search?
Personalized search gives marketers the opportunity to both target users based on their intent, as well as the chance to present offerings when the user is most likely to convert. The key to personalized search, of course, is learning about, and adapting to, what searchers really want. But keep in mind that while the search engines are helping to identify this for you, you need to make sure your ad creative, organic listings, and site content is personalized for your top buyer or audience profiles.
Ultimately, understanding how to personalize your search marketing initiatives can lead to a significant increase in revenue as personalization drives efficiency and higher conversions. Below are some tips on how you can make personalized search work for you:
Build your target keyword list around individual intent, emotions, opinions, buying stages, and lifestyle. Research shows that 30 - 35% of queries on Yahoo! are value-based. For example, many search queries contain terms such as, “cool,” “best” and “great.”
Learn about user intent not only when they tell you about it (i.e. by filling out a user profile), but also by their participation in different online activities (i.e. recommending products, tagging sites and articles, and posting blog comments). Your findings will aid development of your keyword set.
Keep track of what is relevant to your users by tracking which content on your site they frequently refer to, or which tool they use most, and monitor which of their actions and advertising characteristics may be determining the search results they see.
Provide value to users in exchange for profile information. In other words, make their participation and involvement in personalized search worthwhile. For example, grant these users access to premium content or refined results.
Let trends from social sites and user interaction platforms guide the optimization of your personal search content. Analyze which users are rating, bookmarking, or making recommendations to others.
Realize that active users – adopters – are more likely to be advocates and influencers of your product. Given that, invest in the smaller percentage of quality adopters, and focus on building content around the intelligence gathered from a small segment of the most active users of your product or service.
Overall, personalized search is an effective tool that when used properly offers marketers both great insight and returns. I strongly encourage you to incorporate it into your search marketing initiatives today.
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