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To many of us consumers, search is a pivotal element in our life. It helps us organise our days, achieve key tasks, solve existential questions, find our way in the endless possibilities of the web… Yet it is a fact that too few of us Advertisers really comprehend the full role that search marketing can really play in their campaign.

In 2010, the IAB Search Barometer surfaced that 99% of brands considered that search could be better integrated in their wider marketing mix for instance. Although this marketing discipline has established itself as a must-have in most of the media plan, it has much more than just online lead generation to offer. It was thus high time to shade some light on what search can really do, and make marketers realise what consumers have for long.

Get in the know.

The IAB UK’s Search Council – a committee consisting of Microsoft Advertising, Yahoo!, Google, O2, RAC, Sky and a panel of fifteen agencies - has compiled an industry report dedicated to ‘search integration’. The report is designed for marketers from both traditional and digital disciplines to help address a lack of knowledge around search’s true role in the marketing mix. This report, with new insights from Mindshare, Havas and Efficient Frontier, delivers practical advice, case studies and knowledge to help inspire and educate the industry to re-evaluate search’s role.

Split into two core sections, the first half of the report is a detailed analysis of relevant research and best practice. It investigates search’s ability to capture interest generated by other media, the ROPO (research online, purchase offline) opportunity and search’s ability to amplify the effect of the multimedia mix. The second half of the report, written by Search Council members, is dedicated to showcasing search integrated with other media with a range of case studies from brands such as Sony, The Body Shop and Adidas.

There is more to search, than search.

The Key takeaways from the report in an almost too obvious acrostic:

  1. Scale - with 90% of the active UK internet population using search each month, it is a tool all marketers - from offline and online disciplines - should understand
  2. Extend – search captures interest generated by other media, extending engagement significantly in an environment where consumers sell to themselves
  3. All-encompassing – search is used by consumers at all steps of the path-to-purchase, not just the end of the funnel, presenting an opportunity for awareness and branding
  4. ROPO – search is key to the research online, purchase offline effect (ROPO) with search playing a pivotal role in pre-purchase decisions and opinion forming
  5. Complementary – search not only extends but also amplifies the brand effect of other media, multiplying the effectiveness of each media component
  6. Holistic – to fully appreciate search’s role in the media mix an holistic view is necessary and techniques like econometric modelling can help

But don’t take my acronym for it, have a read by yourself… It is worth your time to ensure that for now on, you will fully leverage the possibilities of search in your advertising campaign. The report can be downloaded from the IAB Website: http://www.iabuk.net/searchforintegration