The web space in India has evolved tremendously, especially if one were to look at a period of time ranging from early 2000 to where we are now. Today, the web is acknowledged as a serious channel for informing, communicating and transacting. At iStrat, we have been working at leveraging this innate power of the web to make a difference to the projects that we take on.
Our experience of working extensively with our clients establishes one indisputable fact: the writing is very clearly on the wall — Online Marketing works — and it works to perfection (that is, if it is planned and managed well… which is where we come in).
Over the years, we’ve had exciting opportunities to work on marketing our clients online with the objectives as varied as Branding, Lead Generation and even facilitating sales online, leveraging Banner Advertising, Pay Per Click (PPC) ads on Google and Yahoo, and on to Social Marketing and Organic Search Engine Optimization.
On the flip side, I have interacted with umpteen Marketers and Brand Managers who sadly undermine the potential of Search Engine Marketing; for them, what is important is to be visible on Horizontal Portals. While this might be a good option for branding, it misses out on a host of opportunities for generating brand awareness, leads and online sales.
Here is some data which will help understand the inherent potential of this medium of advertising:
Most Preferred Media: SEM…because this is where you get highest traffic and returns
This Marketing Sherpa study, conducted on 3,944 Marketers indicates that both Product Marketers and Lead Generation Marketers find SEO most rewarding in terms of ROI.
An Effective Media: Search Marketing is cheaper and more effective compared to most other tactics
In this survey, SEO was ranked as the second-most effective media, with 18 percent calling it the strongest tactic, and 36 percent rating it as the best medium for ROI. A close next was search advertising, which was a strong tactic for 16 percent of the respondents, and rated as good ROI generator by 35 percent.
Some Hard Facts For You
Let us analyse the performance of one of our campaigns to prove our point. We had done a media buy on a well-targeted portal along with a parallel media buy on a Search Portal…same Target Group, Media Budget and campaign duration. And here are the results:
Targeted Portal
Clicks : 1375
Click thru rate (CTR)* : .06%
Cost per click: 102.91
Search Portal
Clicks: 9302
Click thru rate (CTR)* : 0.65%
Cost per click: 5.43
*Click-through rate or CTR is a way of measuring the success of an online advertising campaign. A CTR is obtained by dividing the number of users who clicked on an ad on a web page by the number of times the ad was delivered (impressions).
Now isn’t that an eye-opener! Although one cannot generalise this trend, this client has ended up skewing most of their budget on Search Engine Marketing — which isn’t surprising in the least.
So the next time you are exploring the potential of Online Marketing, do include SEM in your campaign.
For more information on the fully integrated web marketing services offered by iStrat, please call Sonya at 98101 38643 or email: sonya@istratindia.com
