Why do you Google? Because you're looking for something. You have a problem to solve or a decision to make. What better time for a marketer to deliver a message? With TV, radio, and print, consumers are in lean-back mode. These are one-way broadcast platforms. The mindset here is entertainment and information. I'm bored, so I flip on the TV. I want the traffic report, so I tune in to the radio. I want to catch up on local politics, so I open the newspaper.
With the Web, consumers are in lean-forward mode. The Web is a two-way narrowcast platform. The mindset here is still generally entertainment and information. But it's also communication and commerce. I get online because I'm bored, want information, want to communicate, want to buy something, or all. On the Internet, these needs manifest themselves across a wide swath of Web properties. I navigate from site to site to satisfy various needs. Information takes me from Weather to ESPN to CNN. Communication bounces me from Gmail to Facebook to Skype. Commerce has me on Amazon, Target, or eBay.
What matters most to marketers are not what Web sites I visit but when and how I visit them. I visit them when I have a particular need. And I get to them via Google. When I go to Google - or use that little search box in my browser - I'm in between modes. I'm shifting. I'm going from entertainment to commerce. Or vice versa. The point is, I'm at a time where I'm open to receiving marketing communications. But it's a short window. According to the Online Publishers Association (OPA), search represents, on average, less than one hour per person per month, accounting for 5 percent of the total time people spent online in 2009.
Meanwhile, over 40 percent of our time online is spent with content, according to the OPA, with another 27 percent going to communications, 13 percent to commerce, and 13 percent to community. That's 16.5 hours per month of online activity spent on things other than searching. The challenge for marketers is that, to reach people in those environments, they need to interrupt.
Google is a pull-marketing channel. Google reaches people at a time when they're open to third-party offers. People invite Google and its advertisers to solve their problems and help them make decisions. Google clearly keeps a separation of church and state by labeling paid search ads as "Sponsored Links" and putting a colored box around them when displayed atop the organic results. Google has begun to alter the ad formats on its search results pages to more closely mirror the layout of organic listings. In late 2009, it introduced Product Listing Ads. These ads, triggered by specific product or brand-related queries, include product images, price, and other related information along with the familiar blue link.
Google has also created search ad units that feature multiple links. Just like many organic search results include "site links" - links to deeper pages on Web sites under the title, description, and URL - advertisers can now include up to four additional links to promotional pages in their paid search listings. To even further blur the lines, Google changed the layout of the search results page in August 2009 by decreasing the white space between the organic search listings and the stack of ads on the right rail. Now, even on wide-screen monitors, the ads on the right hug the organic listings.
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