Further, search has gone beyond just plain text. “People are searching on their voice-activated assistants like Alexa; they’re searching via visual cues on channels like Pinterest.” His advice for marketers is to “shift the thinking around search from a channel to a behavior,” so search becomes a behavioral tool that gives great insights in consumer intentions within exact moments.
To better understand the behavioral impact of search,
Performics partnered with Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism,
Media and Integrated Marketing Communications to launch the Intent Lab. Their
latest study, in collaboration with Microsoft, leverages searcher intent from
the scale of the Bing Search network.
Charlene Weisler: The
Intent Lab’s latest study found that search query language can reveal
behavioral insights into purchase intent. What were the key findings and any
surprises for you?
Esteban Ribero: The level of concreteness of the language in
the search queries is a good proxy for the level of concreteness of the mindset
that consumers are in, and the psychological distance they are at from
accomplishing their goal. For instance, we found that searchers who are
“browsing” (long distance from goal) are 20% more likely to click on search
results the emphasize abstract words, like “best,” while searchers with actual
buying goals are 180% more likely to click on search results that emphasize
concrete words, like “shop.” Searchers
who used concrete queries were also 135% more likely to click on retailer
search results, where they could buy in that moment.
The idea that consumers signal their intent to purchase with
their search queries is not surprising, but the ability to infer the mindset of
the consumer based on the level of concreteness of the search query is a novel
idea. This is allowing us to innovate, creating interesting methodologies and
tools to personalize experiences not just to who you are but to what is in your
mind and the level of concreteness/abstractness your mindset is at that
particular moment. That is the next frontier of personalization. And, we have
proved that it works: When we ran a test and served consumers ads that matched
their mindsets, we saw an increase in performance. For example, when a consumer
searched for an abstract term such as “best” and was shown an abstract (vs. a
concrete) ad, the consumer was 17% more likely to click on the ad.
Charlene Weisler: Can
you include these findings into an attribution model?
Esteban Ribero: We’re exploring new applications of the
intent scoring algorithm and attribution could be one. I have always believed
in the assistive value of top-of-the-funnel keywords. Our learnings validate
the need to serve relevant experiences at any point in consumers’ journey and
the intent scoring algorithm could potentially become a set of weights in an
attribution model, so the assistive value of the different keywords used at
different stages in the journey can be properly captured.
Charlene Weisler: What
learnings can brands take from the study to create ads and experiences that
drive more performance?
Esteban Ribero: When we think about search ads it is easy to
think just about keywords. We found that there is a way to bring to life the
human being behind those keywords and design better experiences that match
people’s intentions so we can really be assistive to them and extract value in
the process.
Charlene Weisler: Do
you think that, as one does search on Google for example, that the suggested
search terms they push modifies behavior? If so, how? And then how do you model
for that?
Esteban Ribero: People turn to search engines with clear
intentions. They’re looking for guidance; they’re looking to explore and get
inspired, they’re also looking for specific details as they evaluate their
options, and of course, they’re there to take action such as buying, signing up
for a service, find a coupon, get directions, etc. As long as the results are
useful and assistive to the searcher, they will influence behavior because
providing relevant results will help them do what they want. It comes down to
personalizing the experience by matching content to people’s intentions and the
mindset they’re in at that particular moment.
There is considerable research in psychology that shows that
the closer we are to accomplishing a goal, the more concrete our minds become
and the more attuned we are to specific and concrete information. Our research
proves that we can identify the mindset that consumers are in by analyzing the
level of concreteness of the language they use in the search query. We can
increase the performance of our clients’ search ads if we match the level of
concreteness of the ad to that of the mindset of the consumer at that moment.
We have developed an intent scoring algorithm to do that so we can provide
optimized experiences at scale.
Charlene Weisler: What
are your next steps in this area of research?
Esteban Ribero: We’re currently exploring ways to
investigate this topic beyond the traditional search engine to further embrace
the idea of search as a behavior, not just a channel.
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