La Publicidad en Google es “poco efectiva” en menores de 25 años, según un estudio

La Publicidad lateral en el buscador de internet Google, denominada “Adwords” es “poco efectiva” en los usuarios menores de 25 años, según el estudio Eyetracking Search Marketing aplicado al Turismo y elaborado por la Consultoria de Internet Gea IPC.

El estudio, realizado a partir de la tecnología Eyetracking que permite hacer un seguimiento de la mirada de usuarios, desvela que los menores de 25 “tienen muy claro” que los Adwords laterales son publicidad y que, por lo tanto, “no merecen su atención”.

Según explicó la consejera delegada de Gea IPC y coautora del estudio, Montserrat Peñarroya, “este tema es importante y vale la pena analizarlo más a fondo ya que hace referencia a las teorías de Comunicación Postmoderna que basan sus tesis en el hecho de que el Marketing resulta tan omnipresente en nuestra sociedad (la Sociedad de Consumo), que ciertos colectivos empiezan a ser inmunes a las comunicaciones tradicionales de Marketing como la Publicidad”.

“Los Adwords pueden ser considerados Comunicación Postmoderna si tenemos en cuenta que pueden llegar a una segmentación casi de uno a uno, pero por otro lado, no dejan de ser un anuncio publicitario que los usuarios son capaces de detectar como publicidad, cosa que les resta eficacia”, añadió Peñarroya.

El estudio demuestra que “los segmentos más jóvenes de nuestra población empiezan a estar saturados de publicidad y se han vuelto inmunes a ella”. el responsable del departamento de Usabilidad de Gea IPC, Albert Burrull explicó que “todo lo que consideran publicidad deja de tener interés para ellos. Si pueden, ni siquiera miran hacia las zonas en las que está la publicidad”.
Algunos de ellos llegan al extremo de considerar publicidad los resultados de Google Maps y “tampoco los miran”. “Por suerte, no en todos los casos es así”, agregó Burrull.

Pese a ello, se puede concluir que la publicidad sigue siendo efectiva, sobre todo cuando se encuentra en forma de Adwords centrales, y que respecto a los Adwords laterales su efectividad está en función del colectivo que se analiza.

Unas palabras más llamativas que otras

A lo largo de este estudio también se ha podido comprobar que ciertas palabras llaman más la atención que otras, puesto que han conseguido que la mirada de un buen número de usuarios se centrase allí, y que luego, eventualmente, acabasen clicando en el anuncio.

Durante el estudio en el que se testeó a los usuarios que buscaban información sobre hoteles, se pudo observar que en las páginas de resultados de Google se “fijaba” más la mirada en aquellas descripciones que incluían datos numéricos, tales como “más de 400 hoteles” o “desde 40 euros”.

Pero también destaca que en el transcurso de las grabaciones de Eyetracking muchas de las personas testeadas miraban algunos anuncios en concreto, especialmente en aquellos en los que aparecía la palabra “luxury”.

¿Google Maps, Posicionamiento natural o Adwords superiores?

Los test realizados en este estudio demostraron que tanto aparecer en el Google Maps como su posicionamiento natural son importantes.

Aunque buscando algo tan concreto como la página web oficial de un hotel, durante el estudio, un 51,85% de los usuarios clicaron en el primer resultado de posicionamiento natural; un 40,74% de los usuarios clicaron sobre la web que aparece en Google Maps y un 7,41% de los usuarios se equivocaron y clicaron sobre Adwords u otros resultados naturales convencidos de que clicaban sobre la web del hotel, cuando no era así.

Los tests demostraron que los usuarios toman la decisión en función del título del anuncio y de la URL de destino. Lo hacen tanto para los Adwords como para Google Maps.

El estudio analizó las diferentes posibilidades que tenían los usuarios al buscar un hotel determinado. “Ganó Adwords por goleada, pero las razones por la que así fue son muy curiosas”, concluyeron los responsables del informe.

(Ana Bugatto de Top Noticias.com)

¿Cómo se mira la lista de resultados de Google?

Un estudio basado en eye tracking desvela qué partes de la página de resultados de Google miran los usuarios durante más tiempo, es decir, lo que más les interesa o llama su atención. Los resultados no sorprenden: lo que más atención recibe son los primeros puestos de la lista.

Ante estos resultados no queda opción: quien quiera ser visto en Google, tendrá que posicionarse en los primeros puestos de la lista de resultados. El estudio, basado en el sistema de seguimiento de la mirada eye tracking, muestra que la mayoría de las miradas se dirigen a los primeros puestos de la lista de resultados de búsqueda. Pero también los enlaces patrocinados de la zona superior derecha de la página reciben cierta atención. Así que si la empresa no está bien posicionada orgánicamente (en la lista de resultados) más le vale escoger con buen tino sus palabras clave.

Los autores del estudio han extraído un principio de estos resultados: las páginas de resultados de búsqueda se miran en triángulo o, más exactamente, en forma de ‘F’. De todas formas, cuanto más tiempo pasa el usuario en la página de resultados, más se extiende su mirada hacia las zonas más bajas. En un lapso de 10 segundos aumentan las posibilidades de ser vistos para los anunciantes que aparecen en la lista de enlaces patrocinados de la derecha. Pero también en este caso se cumple la regla: cuanto más arriba en la lista, más visibilidad.

Los usuarios que vuelven a las páginas de resultados que ya han visto antes cambian su comportamiento de recepción de datos, continúa el estudio. En ese segundo vistazo, la atención se concentra en la zona media e inferior de la lista de resultados, así como en los enlaces patrocinados inferiores. La razón de este comportamiento, según los autores del estudio, es que el usuario aún no ha encontrado lo que busca y repasa con mayor atención los resultados a los que antes no ha hecho caso.

El estudio, se puede consultar en el portal de estudios de Google, Full Value of Search.

Fuente de la noticia: Marketing Directo

Eyetracking Study of Web Readers

In May 2000, the Poynter Institute released an eyetracking study of how people read news on the Web, mainly focusing on newspaper sites. Their results confirm the findings from my previous studies in 1994 and 1997 of how users read on the Web. This despite the fact that these studies used different methodologies, tested different users and different sites, had different goals, and were conducted at very different stages of the growth of the Web.

As discussed in a sidebar, there are a few methodological weaknesses in the Poynter study that make a few of their minor conclusions suspect, but the main findings are very robust and credible. When different people keep finding the same results year by year, it is time to take the findings seriously and to base Web design on the data and not on wishful thinking.

Web content is intellectually bankrupt and almost never designed to comply with the way users read online. Almost all websites contain content that would have worked just as well in print. Even online-only webzines are filled with linear articles with traditional blocks-of-text layouts. No hyperlinks, no scannability. New forms of content that are optimized for online are exceedingly rare, and I keep returning to the same four examples when I am asked to name good writing for the Web: Tomalak’s Realm, AnchorDesk, the Feed Daily mini-column, and Yahoo Full Coverage.

Main Findings

Text Attracts Attention Before Graphics

Of users’ first three eye-fixations on a page, only 22% were on graphics; 78% were on text. In general, users were first drawn to headlines, article summaries, and captions. They often did not look at the images at all until the second or third visit to a page.

Keep Headlines Simple and Direct

Confirming our findings from 1997, the users in the current study also preferred straightforward headlines to funny or cute ones. A new finding was that users often praised the Web headlines for being better than the headlines in print newspapers. It seems that several of the news sites have taken the earlier findings to heart and have started rewriting their headlines for online.

Shallow Reading Combined With Selected Depth

It was more than three times as common for users to limit their reading to a brief as opposed to reading a full article. Even when reading a “full” article, users only read about 75% of the text.

In other words, the most common behavior is to hunt for information and be ruthless in ignoring details. But once the prey has been caught, users will sometimes dive in more deeply. Thus, Web content needs to support both aspects of information access: foraging and consumption. Text needs to be scannable, but it also needs to provide the answers users seek.

Interlaced Browsing

Users in the Poynter study frequently alternated between multiple sites:

• they would read something in one window
• then switch to another window and visit another site
• and then return to the first window and read some more on the first site; possibly to turn to the second window again later in the session

I observed this behavior as early as 1994: users would interlace browsing sessions in several windows. Doing so is particularly easy on big monitors that show several full-page windows simultaneously, but can also be done on small screens. The Windows task bar facilitates session-interlaced browsing as long as users stay below eight sessions or so.

I admit that I was surprised when we started seeing interlaced browsing in 1994. Previous studies had not identified this behavior, so I originally expected people to browse a specific site and stay with its navigation features until they decided that they were done with it. In retrospect it is clear why interlacing was not seen in the old days: we were simply not studying sufficiently rich hyperspaces.

The lesson for site designers is that users are not focused on any single site. There is not even such a thing as “a visit” to a site: even while the user is “visiting” your site, he or she is also checking out the competition. Truly, the Web as a whole forms the user experience.

Site design must accommodate people who leave and return frequently:

• help users reorient themselves
  • plain and simple headlines immediately tell users what each page is about
  • simple page titles that start with a salient keyword help users pick out pages from the minimized tiles in the Windows task bar
• do not assume users can remember their entire browsing session:
  • provide breadcrumbs and other location tools
  • do not change the standard link colors – doing so makes it harder to recognize what pages the user has already seen
• use standard terminology to minimize the need for users to switch context and remember what you call things
• during user testing, interrupt the users for a few minutes if they don’t leave your site on their own (in order to test their ability to return to the site)

Implications for Non-Newspaper Sites

It is not really a weakness of the Poynter study that it focused on newspaper sites. It is fair enough to study a narrow genre. But since the vast majority of websites are not newspaper sites, I want to mention some limitations in transferring the findings to other types of sites such as corporate sites, ecommerce sites, or intranets:

• Trust is less of an issue for newspapers which usually have high integrity. Other sites need to fight for credibility and must reduce marketese, slogans, and other elements that generate distrust.
• Users are likely to spend much less time on other sites. Ten minutes would be a long visit to most sites.
• Users will read fewer words on other sites than they do on newspaper sites. Editorial integrity and journalistic objectivity make people more willing to read a larger percentage of the material. The task of reading news implies a willingness to process more words more than the average Web task which is directed at finding specific information and solutions.

The new eyetracking study is mostly applicable to all types of websites. Most of the Poynter findings confirm earlier findings from studies of many other types of sites, so they relate to basic characteristics of reading on the Web and are not limited to newspapers.

Adding one more study to the list of evidence for different reading behavior will hopefully convince more Internet executives of the need to write differently for the Web and hire specialized Web editors who understand online content.

Newer Eyetracking Research

Results from new eyetracking studies confirm the old Poynter findings and add more detail and insights from hundreds of non-newspaper sites.

What’s Ahead For Search Marketing In 2009

It’s an understatement to say that we live in uncertain times, and that any data that can help us strategize, plan or even to some extent predict what’s ahead is worth its weight in… well, let’s just say this kind of information is invaluable. That makes the Marketing Sherpa 2009 Search Marketing Benchmark Guide very timely for just about everyone involved in our industry. The Guide is packed with data, analysis, charts, graphs and all manner of other useful info.

This is the fifth annual Search Marketing Benchmark Guide that Marketing Sherpa has produced, but its unlike any of the others I’ve seen. It’s far more comprehensive and detailed, pulling together stats compiled by Marketing Sherpa as well as “best of” research from more than 50 respected research partners. The result is nearly 300 pages of no-fluff data, with 215 charts, tables and eyetracking heatmaps covering just about all aspects of search marketing.

The Guide has five major coverage areas:

Budgeting and search. Want to know which industries are the biggest spenders on search, or how marketers plan to allocate budgets for search vs. other types of marketing next year? Or how budgets will be allocated across different categories, such as B2B, local or mobile search? How about salary information, or percent of spend on SEO vs. PPC? It’s all here. If you face challenges justifying budgets to management or fees to your clients, the information in this section provides reliable benchmarks that you can use to bolster your case.

Tactics of search. Search marketing is becoming increasingly sophisticated and complex, with new tactics emerging all the time as marketers compete for searcher attention. This section offers a good overview of current cutting-edge tactics, including targeting by demographics or geography, the effectiveness of local and mobile search and others. There’s also a detailed look at the branding effects of search advertising that offers some of the best evidence I’ve seen yet that search ads can offer a brand lift—at least for certain types of businesses or products, and when it’s done properly.

Search providers explored. Stats, stats and more stats—not just about Google’s dominance, but how the other smaller players compare, and why it’s a good idea to consider targeting traffic via those other sources. This section also has useful stats on shopping comparison engines, and international search engines for search marketers looking to broaden their campaigns on a global basis.

Measuring and testing. I’m constantly surprised by the number of search marketers that don’t fully take advantage of the wealth of information that can be gleaned from their campaigns. Sure, most people look at rudimentary metrics and may tweak their campaigns slightly based on a quick scan of the data, but the most successful search marketers thoroughly analyze, test and test again, across a broad spectrum of metrics. This section looks at how analytics can be effectively applied to different aspects of a campaign, from keyword research all the way through measuring conversion rates over time.

Search benchmarks. As the Guide describes it: “All of the fundamental metrics of search marketing, fully updated and in one place, including costs per click, keyword prices, volume and conversion rates.” Enough said.

With a price of $397, the Marketing Sherpa 2009 Search Marketing Benchmark Guide isn’t something you will pick up and take to the beach for some light reading. But if you’re wanting a comprehensive, authoritative overview of just about all aspects of the search marketing industry, you won’t find a better all-in-one source than this Guide.