Google Research Proves Value Of Search And Affiliate

June 16th, 2008

Search marketing behemoth, Google, released a study today that demonstrates how newspaper ads help drive users to the web. They also note (not surprisingly) that 69% of users who conducted research online used Google while only 19% used Yahoo. Here is a nice graphic of their findings.

This research points out another way that different marketing mediums support one another. Users are doing more and more of their research online everyday. Consumers are now more educated than ever because they have tons of data available at their fingertips. Different advertising mediums reach different consumers in different ways but the trend certainly seems to be that many consumers end up researching their purchase online before buying. This further strengthens the need for companies to run effective organic and paid search marketing campaign.

Whether intentional or not, this study could also show the importance of advertising on affiliate sites and shopping comparison websites. As you can see from the study, the highest % of consumers who purchased came from shopping related sites. I have not been able to find how this category is defined but based on its description you can assume it is referencing shopping comparison websites and shopping related websites. Shopping comparison websites such as bizrate.com and pricegrabber.com have grown in importance over the last few years so it’s no surprise to see this data. However, many top affiliate websites are also shopping related such as those focused on coupons and incentives. For example, flamingoworld.com, couponcabin.com, upromise.com, cashbaq.com, and others.

Perhaps this second bit of learning is why Google decided to retain the affiliate marketing component of Performics and sell off its search side only.