Paid Search Drives Higher Revenue per Visit than Organic Listings for Hewlett-Packard

CHICAGO and SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 26, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Global digital marketing leaders Resolution Media (www.resolutionmedia.com) and Kenshoo (www.Kenshoo.com) published The Search Sandbox today that analyzes the relationship between Paid and Organic Search Marketing for a major retail division of Hewlett Packard (HP) (www.hp.com) in the United States. The dataset covers millions of visits for each of the Paid and Organic Search channels and addresses more than $10 million in direct online sales conversion revenue for each channel.

"Search is a foundational channel within the marketing mix, and we're constantly striving for new ways to maximize its performance," said Mark Grote, World Wide Search Advertising Manager of Hewlett-Packard. "Working with Kenshoo, Resolution continues to provide new perspectives on how to best balance paid and organic search. A lot of marketers can benefit from the insights we've uncovered here."

Key findings from the report include:

• Paid Search drives higher Net Revenue per Visit (Paid Search revenue minus the direct media costs from those clicks) than Organic Search
• Even with the Organic result at first position, consumers still click and convert on Paid listings 39.6% of the time
• Paid Search is the only viable option when Organic results fall off the first page, garnering 93.1% of a keyword's Click Share (percentage of total clicks achieved when both a Paid Search and Organic listing appear together)
• Organic Search drives a slightly higher Click Share (52.4% vs. 47.6%) and Net Revenue Share (53.5% vs. 46.5%) on brand keywords versus Paid Search
• Paid Search performance outpaces that of Organic Search for non-brand keywords with a 77.2% Click Share and a 70.3% Net Revenue Share

"Putting campaigns on auto-pilot is not an option, since the paid and organic search marketplaces are in constant motion. Ranking factors fluctuate, competitors enter and leave the market, and consumer behaviors continuously evolve," says Alan Osetek, Global President of Resolution Media. "Resolution strives to help brands like HP balance the roles of organic and paid search, search within digital, and digital as a critical part of discovery marketing."

Aaron Goldman, chief marketing officer at Kenshoo adds, "This research puts to rest the controversy over running paid search advertising for brands that have strong organic coverage. Our study shows that visitors arriving from paid search are more profitable than those arriving from organic search, even when you take into account traffic acquisition costs. Smart marketers, like those at Resolution and HP are embracing a holistic approach to search engine marketing to get the most out of their investment."

For the purposes of this study, Resolution Media and Kenshoo analyzed a full year (Feb. 28, 2012 – March 1, 2013) of U.S. campaign performance results from the Imaging and Printing Group (IPG) of Hewlett Packard (HP). The data set focuses solely on clicks and visits and includes only instances where both a Paid Search listing and (at least one) Organic Search listing were triggered by the same keyword.

The complete report, entitled The Search Sandbox: Paid plays well with Organic, can be downloaded at www.ResolutionMedia.com/us/white-papers/SearchSandbox or www.Kenshoo.com/SearchSandbox.

About HP
HP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society. With the broadest technology portfolio spanning printing, personal systems, software, services and IT infrastructure, HP delivers solutions for customers' most complex challenges in every region of the world. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com.

About Resolution Media
Resolution Media, an Omnicom Media Group company, is one of the largest search agencies in the world. The company manages more than $1.2B in media investments, with more than 500 specialists in 60+ offices worldwide. Resolution's international network delivers digitally-integrated, full-service solutions in the areas of search, social, local, mobile, behavioral and content marketing.

For more information, please visit www.ResolutionMedia.com.

About Kenshoo
Kenshoo is a digital marketing technology company that engineers premium solutions for search marketing, social media and online advertising. Brands, agencies and developers use Kenshoo Search, Kenshoo Social, Kenshoo Local and Kenshoo SmartPath to direct more than $25 billion in annual client sales revenue. The Kenshoo platform delivers Infinite Optimization^TM through closed-loop targeting, universal integration, and dynamic attribution. Kenshoo's adaptive technology, proven algorithms, and unmatched scale power campaigns in more than 190 countries for nearly half of the Fortune 50 and all 10 top global ad agency networks. Kenshoo clients include CareerBuilder, Expedia, Facebook, KAYAK, Havas Media, Hitwise, iREP, John Lewis, Resolution Media, Sears, Starcom MediaVest Group, Tesco, Travelocity, Walgreens, and Zappos. Kenshoo has 18 international locations and is backed by Sequoia Capital, Arts Alliance and Tenaya Capital. Please visit www.Kenshoo.com for more information.

Resolution Media and Kenshoo brand and product names are trademarks of Resolution Media, Inc. and Kenshoo Ltd. Other company and brand names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Contact:

Isabelle Gauvry
917 435 6457
[email protected]

SOURCE Resolution Media