No Revolution

Search Marketing Vital for Brand Building and Driving Offline Sales for Consumer Packaged Goods Companies

“While search marketing has long been recognized as an effective direct response vehicle, it’s been largely overlooked by CPG companies who focus on brand advertising and promotional efforts to drive in-store purchasing,” commented Gord Hotchkiss, Chairman of SEMPO. “This study seeks to demonstrate the potential brand-building impact of search for CPG marketers.”

Millions of Consumers Use Search to Learn About CPG Products
Search appears to represent a significant marketing opportunity for CPG brands. The study found that a majority of U.S. consumers visited Web sites for CPG product categories during the three months ending April 2007, with search driving a significant percentage of visitors in all the categories. Food products represented the largest search marketing opportunity with nearly 44 million category site visitors searching. Baby products attracted 15.7 million searchers, followed by personal care products with 9.8 million and household products with 1.7 million.

The study also found that a substantial percentage of the visitors to category Web sites arrived as a result of a search query. Among visitors to baby products sites, 60 percent arrived via search, followed by 47 percent in food products, 27 percent in personal care products, and 23 percent in household products.