Clicks 'n Conversions Blog

One of the beauties of pay-per-click advertising – and organic SEO – is how much you can understand about the potential buyer just by the words they use.

TechTarget & Google , in a recent report on Search Behavior of IT Buyers Online During the Purchase Process , clustered keywords into four groups: brand, issue/opportunity, solution and comparison, and studied how and when these words are used.

Like many studies, most of what they found on this subject is fairly intuitive if you take the time to think about it but it’s always good to have some solid data behind the assumptions.

Why does it matter how and when the keywords are used? Because the searchers’ choice of words can tell you where they are in the buying process. When you know that, you can craft a much more compelling offer, ad and/or landing page.

The study confirmed “Issue / Opportunity” keywords are used more in the Awareness (initial) Stage of the buying process than at any other time. This group includes:

• Issue
• Resolve
• Risks
• Upgrade
• Improve
• Optimize
• Prevent
• Troubleshoot.

When you see these words in a keyword phrase you can be fairly sure the searcher is early in the buying process – having identified a pain point – and is trying to learn more about the problem or opportunity itself.

In other words, they are unlikely to be interested in a product demo right now. But they will read eBooks, newsletters, editorial articles and whitepapers on the business issue.

“Solution” keywords are more common in the Consideration Stage. This group includes words such as:

• Provider
• Service
• Vendor
• Supplier
• Tool
• Device
• Software
• Appliance
• Solution

In the Consideration Stage, buyers are more familiar with their issue and want to know more about the kinds of solutions available to address the problem or opportunity. In this phase, according to the study, they are the most responsive to wide range of content types – everything from ebooks, whitepaper, podcasts, online videos, newsletters, and virtual tradeshows.

By the time buyers reach the Decision Stage, they are looking more for specific brands and product/solution comparisons. Brand words are obvious:

• EMC
• Microsoft
• Oracle
• Your name
• Your competitors’ names

Comparison words include

• Versus
• vs.
• Review
• Test
• Pros and cons
• Benchmarks
• Compare

When searchers use these words they are getting serious about making a decision. They’re more likely to be interested in your trial software, online demos and even product literature.

Now that you know this what do you do about it?

By clustering keywords in your PPC campaign into ad groups according to buying stage you can increase both your click-through rate and your conversion rate. That’s because you can make educated guesses about what will appeal to the searcher and produce more relevant offers.

Similarly you could create landing pages on your website that are optimized to show up in organic listings according to buying stage.

Search marketing is one of very few marketing tactics where you are allowed this much understanding of what’s going on in your prospects’ minds. It would be a shame to let that go to waste. Listen carefully.