Protecting Your Brand Online

Transcription

1 Protecting Your Brand Online November 2008 Heather Lead Analyst: Hopkins Sandra Hanchard Heather Hopkins, Hitwise UK Senior Online Analyst, Hitwise US Analyst, Hitwise Asia Pacific Heather Dougherty Research Director, Hitwise US

2 Executive Summary 1 When customers search for your brand online what do they find? Marketers spend hundreds of millions of dollars developing their brands offline. How much of that spend is going to waste as brand names are hijacked online? The problem is enormous. More than 1 in 10 US Internet searches for leading brands is led away from the brand owner s website. Online businesses need to be aware of the extent of the problem and to understand the best ways to deal with threats. This report will quantify the extent of the risk to brands and provide specific recommendations to protect a brand online. Hitwise data and tools are used to illustrate brand analysis and specific examples are provided of how to use Hitwise to find and monitor companies trading on a brand. Key Findings 87% of searches for leading e-commerce brands reach the brand owner s website: Consumers are more often lured away from the brand owner s site when brand names are misspelled and when generic words are included with the brand name in the query. (page 2) Conversations shifting to Social Networks: Hitwise analysis reveals a 65% year over year increase, and a three-fold increase over the past three years, in visits to Social Networks from searches for leading brands. (page 3) 86% of all Internet searches are navigational: Navigational and branded searches (where there is a clear intention to reach a particular website or brand) account for 86% of Internet searches, up from 71% in (page 5) Brand owners need to monitor which websites receive traffic from their brand searches and take appropriate action: Companies have no control over how consumers spell or articulate their brand in a search engine. It is vital that brand owners understand all of the permutations of brand expression in order to get maximum benefit from costly brand campaigns and to minimise brand leakage. (page 6-8)

3 Brands Miss Out On Search Traffic 2 The Threat to Brands is Extensive More than 1 in 10 US Internet searches for leading e-commerce brands send visitors to other websites, including competitors and affiliates, reveals Hitwise analysis. The analysis considered the 30 leading e-commerce brands 1 in the Airlines, Appliances and Electronics, and Insurance categories and revealed that in the four weeks ending September 27th, 2008 an average of 87% of searches for the top branded search terms (i.e. southwest airlines, usaa, best buy ) sent visits to the brand owner s website. Only 87% of brand searches go to the brand owner s website. The extent to which brand searches reach the brand website varies greatly by brand but not by sector. In the four weeks ending September 27th, 2008: 87% of brand searches for the top 10 Insurance provider websites and top 10 Appliances Electronics websites went to the brand owner s website compared with 86% for Airlines. USAA was one of the most successful at protecting its brand, receiving 96% of visits from searches for usaa. Similarly, United Healthcare received 94% of visits from searches for its brand and Northwest Airlines 92%. At the other end of the spectrum, a top 10 Appliances and Electronics retailer received 66% of visits from searches for its brand, a top 10 Insurance provider 78% and a top 10 Airline 75%. The issue of online brand protection is not an exclusive concern of major retail categories. In the four weeks ending September 27th, 2008: The #2 downstream website for searches for drudge report was Google News, receiving 3.79% of visits from searches for the breaking political news site. The website, BestWebGifts.com received 1.93% of visits from searches for american red cross. The issue of online brand protection becomes more complex when we consider misspellings and searches that combine the brand name with a key product term in the search string. We saw earlier that 96% of searches for usaa went to the USAA website however that figure dropped to 78% for searches for usaa insurance where 12% of visits went to USInsuranceOnline in the four weeks ending September 27th, USInsuranceOnline was likely broad matching on the term insurance meaning that it appears in paid results for queries that include the word insurance. While 90% of visits from searches for southwest airlines went to the Southwest Airlines website, that figure dropped to 66% for searches for southwest airlines reservations in the four weeks ending September 27th, The analysis covered the top 10 Airlines, Insurance (excluding NetQuote.com and ehealthinsurance.com) and Appliances and Electronics websites based on share of US Internet visits in the month of September.

4 Brands Miss Out On Search Traffic 3 Conversations About Brands Are Also Shifting to Social Networks In addition to competitive sites, brand searches are also leading consumers to social networks. Hitwise data reveals that brand searches are being lured to Social Networking and Forum sites, posing new challenges for brand owners. The following chart reveals: A 65% year-on-year increase in visits to Social Networking sites from searches for leading brands and a 3-fold increase over the past three years. Appliances and Electronics brands need to be particularly aware of this: 4.41% of searches for virgin mobile went to Social Networking sites. 2.29% of searches for tmobile went to Social Networking sites. 1.69% of searches for radio shack, 1.09% of searches for circuit city and 1.21% of searches for best buy went to Social Networking sites. Visits from Searches for 30 Leading Brands to Social Networks Hitwise analysis reveals a 65% year-on-year increase in visits to Social Networks from searches for leading brands and a 3-fold increase over the past 3 years.

5 Brands Miss Out On Search Traffic 4 Brand Protection Efforts Reap Rewards Action taken by major commercial airlines to tighten the reins on travel agencies to prevent agencies and resellers from capitalizing on the airlines brands appear to be working. For example, traffic from searches for the American Airlines brand 2 three years ago made up nearly 4% of visits to Travel Agencies. That is down to less than 1% for the four weeks ending September 27th, Searches for American Airlines Brand Terms to Travel - Agencies Websites Action by brands is reaping rewards. Searches for the top 10 American Airlines brand terms accounted for less than 1% of visits to Travel Agencies in September 2008, compared with nearly 4% in The analysis was done using a portfolio containing the top 10 American Airlines brand terms.

6 Brands Miss Out On Search Traffic 5 Branded Search is on the Rise Hitwise analysis reveals that consumers are increasingly using Google and other search engines to navigate to specific websites because people are using search engines to navigate the web: Rather than typing a URL directly into an address bar or bookmarking a website, many users now trust search engines to the extent that they just type a brand name into a search engine or into the search toolbar in their browser. An important reason for this behavioral change is prolific use of search toolbars. It is faster and easier to type a website name into the search box than to navigate to that URL directly. Hitwise carried out an analysis of the top 1,500 search terms in the US each quarter from the first quarter of 2005 to the first quarter of 2008, categorising the terms into: Branded/navigational terms (e.g. facebook, cnn.com, expedia - i.e. searches where there was a clear intention to search for a brand or reach a particular website) and Non-navigational terms (e.g. flights to florida, free games, etc.) 3. As the chart below illustrates, the share of navigational queries has increased significantly over the last three years, from 71% in the first quarter of 2005 to 86% in first quarter of Rise of Branded and Navigational Queries. Based on Top 1500 search terms for 12 rolling weeks each quarter. 100% 86% of internet searches are navigational, up from 71% in Q Share of Branded & Navigational Search 75% 50% 25% 0% 71% 71% 74% 74% 77% 80% 81% 83% 84% 86% 87% 86% 86% Q105 Q205 Q305 Q405 Q106 Q206 Q306 Q406 Q107 Q207 Q307 Q407 Q108 3 Some terms that may otherwise be considered generic were classified as branded terms (including weather and people ), as Hitwise Search Term Analysis revealed that consumers overwhelmingly visited one specific website (such as weather.com or people.com) after entering that search query.

7 How to Protect Your Brand Online 6 With branded search on the rise and these searches leading consumers away from the rightful brand owners, what is a marketer to do? In order to act, firms need to measure the extent of the problem for their own brand and quantify competitive threats. Know How Consumers Search For Your Brand With Hitwise Search Term Portfolio The first step is to create a Hitwise Search Term Portfolio to store all of the variations of ways that consumers search for your brand. It is important for this Portfolio to reflect the way consumers search for your brand rather than just the terms your own firm uses to describe the brand. The list will include your trademarked name, misspellings and search strings that incorporate your brand with common generic words used in conjunction with your brand. This Portfolio can be populated from: Website Centric Tools: Your own website centric tool will offer a comprehensive list of search terms consumers use to reach your website. Your search terms can then be uploaded via CSV spreadsheet to your Hitwise Search Term Portfolio. Hitwise Website Search Terms report: From within Hitwise firms can simply check a box to select the terms to add to a Search Term Portfolio. Hitwise Search Term Variations: This report shows the queries consumers perform that include your brand name. Again a simple check box is all that is needed to add these terms to the Portfolio. See The Websites Consumers Visit After Searching For Your Brand Use Hitwise Search Intelligence to reveal the downstream websites visited immediately after a search for a specific term or for a Portfolio of terms. For example, in the table below, we can see that 1.20% of searches for the Southwest Airlines Portfolio of brand terms sent visits to Lowfares.com in the four weeks ending September 27th, 2008, and that 88.07% of those visits were from paid clicks. Websites receiving traffic from terms in Southwest Brand Terms 4 weeks ending September 27, 2008 Set up a custom brand health monitor Dashboard through your Hitwise account manager (am.us@hitwise.com) Further analysis of this Portfolio reveals that for the term southwest airlines reservations, Lowfares. com received 20.65% of visits and the Southwest Airlines website only 66.33% of visits. This report is updated weekly and can be accessed from the Search Intelligence TM platform or a Brand Monitor Dashboard. Create a Brand Monitor Dashboard as a Brand Warning System To monitor threats to your brand online over time, set up a Brand Monitor Dashboard. The Dashboard will give you an at-a-glance status update on competitive threats to your brand online. Dashboards can also be shared across an organization.

8 How to Protect Your Brand Online 7 Take Action to Protect Your Brand Protections From Search Engines There have been a number of lawsuits brought against search engines by brands claiming trademark infringement. In 2005, a legal case involving GEICO and Google ruled that the search engine was able to sell the ad but that the trademarked name could not appear in the title or text of the ad. The most basic action you must take is to contact the search engine if and when a competitor is including your trademarked name in ad copy. Making The Case To Bid On Your Brand Some online marketers believe it is unnecessary to bid on their brand s trademarked name when their own site is already the first organic search result. However, as Hitwise Paid versus Organic Search Term Analysis data reveals, competition is fierce for visits from brand searches. The following table lists the top 10 paid search terms in the US for the four weeks ending September 27th, The list is dominated by brand terms, with ebay the top paid search term in the US. Search Terms driving traffic to All Categories 4 weeks ending September 27, 2008 The main reasons that brand owners should also bid on Paid listings for their own trademarked brand name are to improve ad placement, ad copy, landing page, and click-through rates. Ad Placement: Bidding on your own brand name ensures that when consumers search for your brand, your ad appears ahead of ads for competitors and affiliates. While in the organic search results your listing may appear first, this could place your listing below three sponsored listings and any search engine shortcuts (such as Local, Maps or Finance). Text of Your Ad: Bidding on your brand name allows you to control the ad copy that appears in the sponsored search result to highlight promotions such as free shipping, and to influence consumer perceptions of your brand. Landing Page: Bidding on the brand name also allows you to control the landing page. Online marketers often find that different landing pages can alter conversion rates significantly.

9 How to Protect Your Brand Online 8 For example, in the following example from Google, a consumer searching for orbitz sees paid advertisements in the right column with links to BlueStarJets.com, SmartFares.com, CheapOAir.com and Priceline. Work With Affiliates and Partners Many brands debate whether to allow partners and affiliates to bid on the brand name to secure the top positions in search results. The benefit is that the above the fold search results are blocked by your trusted partners and affiliates rather than competitors. The dangers are that the cost of your brand terms becomes inflated and that consumers are lured away from your website to your own business partners, who you may then have to pay. There is no right or wrong answer and firms must evaluate this on a case by case basis. However, the following guidelines may help firms who decide to go down this path: Allow only your most trusted partners and affiliates to bid on your brand and consider starting the process with a test with a few close partners. Write into contracts with affiliates the terms of the agreement, such as: Require affiliates to always appear below your sponsored listing Cap affiliate bids to ensure they avoid driving up your media costs. Require the landing page to display information on your brand alone with a direct link to your website. Provide a regular feed for content of affiliate ads to ensure up to date information in the ads and to avoid duplicate content (and possible filtering by search engines). Monitor affiliates by searching their websites, on the search engines and using Hitiwse. Look in particular for misrepresentations and false claims.

10 Appendix 9 Learn More To learn more about the, please contact your Account Manager or support@hitwise.com. Hitwise Search Intelligence If you are not fully tapping into Search Intelligence for both your marketing and your research efforts, you are missing a proven way to grow and protect your business. To learn more about the New Search Intelligence tools visit: Brand Monitor Dashboard To set up a Brand Monitor Dashboard contact your Account Manager for assistance or info@hitwise.com. To have a Custom Brand Health Analysis performed by the Hitwise Client Intelligence Group contact Anita Gandhi at anita.gandhi@hitwise.com or (212) Visit the Hitwise University ( to watch the recent Executive Webinar - Fear Uncertainty and Doing Something - Using Hitwise data in a down economy. About Hitwise Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Only Hitwise provides its 1,500 clients around the world with daily insights on how their customers interact with a broad range of competitive websites, and how their competitors use different tactics to attract online customers. Since 1997, Hitwise has pioneered a unique, network-based approach to Internet measurement. Through relationships with ISPs around the world, Hitwise s patented methodology anonymously captures the online usage, search and conversion behavior of 25 million Internet users. This unprecedented volume of Internet usage data is seamlessly integrated into an easy to use, webbased service, designed to help marketers better plan, implement and report on a range of online marketing programs. Hitwise, a subsidiary of Experian (FTS: EXPN) operates in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. More information about Hitwise is available at For up to date analysis of online trends, please visit the Hitwise Intelligence-Analyst Weblogs at and the Hitwise Data Center at For further updates on any of the topic covered in this report, please contact: Rob Schatzel at robert.schatzel@hitwise.com or via our website:

11 Appendix 10 About Experian Experian is a global leader in providing information, analytical and marketing services to organizations and consumers to help manage the risk and reward of commercial and financial decisions. Combining its unique information tools and deep understanding of individuals, markets and economies, Experian partners with organisations around the world to establish and strengthen customer relationships and provide their businesses with competitive advantage. For consumers, Experian delivers critical information that enables them to make financial and purchasing decisions with greater control and confidence. Clients include organisations from financial services, retail and catalogue, telecommunications, utilities, media, insurance, automotive, leisure, e-commerce, manufacturing, property and government sectors. Experian Group Limited is listed on the London Stock Exchange (EXPN) and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 index. It has corporate headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, and operational headquarters in Costa Mesa, California and Nottingham, UK. For more information on Experian Integrated Marketing, visit or call us on For more information on the Experian Group, visit Disclaimer Some of the data presented in this report is based on custom data sets built for the purpose of this report and not available in the syndicated Hitwise service. This research report may contain names, information, data, links to third party website addresses, and other materials belonging to third parties; including textual references to such items. Any and all such uses are for illustrative purposes only and do not necessarily indicate an endorsement of the opinions, products or services provided by those third parties. Hitwise does not claim any proprietary right in, or to, any such items as may qualify as copyrights, trademarks or other proprietary marks of third parties. Hitwise is not responsible for the content of third party websites, or the manner in which information may be collected on that website and used by the third party. Hitwise disclaims any responsibility towards the visitor of a third party website or any third party for any direct, indirect or incidental reliance, consequential or punitive damages, including without limitation lost profits, expenses or revenue; regardless of whether Hitwise knew, or ought to have known, of the possibility of any loss or damage arising from the use of, or visit to, a third party s website. Use of this research report is at your own and sole risk. Hitwise disclaims any and all warranties or representations in respect of the accuracy or usefulness of information, or any observations that may be derived from such information, obtained from Hitwise.