Microsoft Advertising publishes a fascinating library of research and case studies in the online Research Library. I’d recommend that you spend an hour browsing there if you’re trying to learn some new best practices that will help in your online advertising.

At SMX West on Wednesday, I had the chance to hear from others in the industry about some of the new research they’ve published with some fascinating insights into the behavior of shoppers, searchers, and advertising consumers online.

Venkat Kolluri, CEO of Chitika; Gordon Hotchkiss, President and CEO of Enquiro, Carla Borsoi, vice president of research and analytics for Ask.com, and Shari Thurow, founder of Omni Marketing Interactive, presented on the panel delving into recent research they’ve each released for search marketers.

“Technographic segmentation” the process of determining implicit behavioral and demographic segmentation based on a user’s interaction with technology, is entering a new era, predicts Venkat. For example, he described research showing if someone is searching for your product, and you know they pressed the Enter key, instead of clicking on the Search icon, you can glean implicit targeting data from that action. Users who type Enter instead of clicking the icon in a search engine tend to be higher educated, more technically savvy, early adopters. They are more difficult to entice into clicking on Web advertising. This is one of the findings in some research recently published by his company.

Carla Borsoi described some research from Ask.com where people were asked to document all of the questions that occurred to them over the course of 5 days. Users were asked to write down the question, the situation in which it came up, and whether they found an answer. Questions ranged from mundane - When is soccer practice, - to the emotional, - Why is my girlfriend breaking up with me. People are  very smart about the resources they use to get answers.

What do people want in an answer?

• Confidence – evidence the answer is correct.
• Reassurance- evidence that their question is on the right track, and that other people are asking it.
• Verification- people are looking for a consistent answer given to others.
• Easy to get
• Consistent
• Contextual – People want information that is relevant for their geography, and time.

Gord Hotchkiss from Enquiro described some research indicating that brands matter in search. He provided the following summary:

• Search builds all traditional brand lift metrics.
• The more recognizable brands in a search result, the more time the user spends with them.
• Brands have to be relevant to the query.
• There is an emotional connection with brands in search.
• In markets where the brands haven’t adopted search, there is a tremendous early adopter benefit.
• Brand connections carry over into lifestyle searches.

Good research from some experts in the industry is one of the benefits of these conference experiences. What other research have you been talking about? Send us pointers and keep the discussion going.

chris