According to a Forrester study, 71% of online shoppers read reviews, (http://www.ratepoint.com/resources/industrystats.html) making it the most widely read form of consumer-generated content. Additionally, a separate study by Coremetrics (http://www.bazaarvoice.com/resources/stats) found that people who read a review were 30% more likely to purchase a product and visitors who wrote a review were 80% more likely to convert.

Likewise, recommendation engines like Amazon (‘people who bought this product also bought that product’) go a long way to mirroring the retail experience and assisting in driving cross sell and upsell behaviour. When recommendation engines go social however, like LastFM (‘people who like similar things to you also like this’) it really starts to feel even more relevant and personalised bringing an offline experience truly online.

When Google announced their transition to real-time search this catapulted the importance of social media in the search game too. Real-time data is now placed above traditional web search results and as a result, it makes it even easier for a consumer who is purchasing a product to review social content that they may previously have had to work a lot harder to find.

The impact of the social content on sales is undeniable.

Social media has rapidly become one of the most powerful ways to raise awareness, build brands, drive customer loyalty and attract audiences to sites. Building a loyal community who are engaged and willing to contribute social content is potentially one of the most critical components of sales conversion in e-commerce and essential to the digital strategy of any marketer or retailer who is trying to sell their products online.

This is an area that any online retailer should be looking into seriously, and we’ll be discussing the key issues in the session at ad:tech ‘What Is The Impact Of Social Content On e-Commerce?’. The panellists will be reviewing the key issues. They are:

• Mike Hickinbotham, Social Media Senior Advisor, Telstra
• Tim O’Neill, Joint Managing Director, Reactive
• Dan Ferguson, Online Channel Manager, General Pants
• Michael Gorman, Vice President for Strategy, Acxiom Global Multichannel Marketing Services
• Tim Hughes, Vice President, Commercial, HotelClub.com, Orbitz Worldwide

Myself and the ad:tech panel would welcome your comments and thoughts here.

And you can see the video of Tim Hughes sharing his thoughts on the subject here:

I would pose the question however: Is the increase because of the importance of search in the consumer purchase path or is it because there is a perception on the part of advertisers that search is more effective?

Many marketers want the ability to measure customers’ paths to purchase and understand the influences of each channel on a sale. Historically, we looked at the CTR to measure the effectiveness of spend. We later became a little more sophisticated and started tracking conversion and CPA. The problem with both of these measures in their purest form however, is that they only measure the number of people who responded to an individual ad and which creative execution drove a conversion.

Neither, when viewed in isolation, really take into account the other media channels that may provide an assist to conversion.

For example, the following charts illustrate that the search activity rises during the later part of the day and evening.

This correlates closely to the TV watching patterns and indeed to overall internet usage in the home. We have also seen multiple studies that observe the increasing levels of multitasking by the average consumer.

In other words, a consumer may watch a TV ad or view a banner that tweeks their interest. If they ten type the search term into google and click on a paid result. In the traditional measurement approach, it is the SEM budget that is credited with the click and the ROI.

In this case, the measurement techniques (and marketing budgets) are allocated based on last click wins rather than reviewing the impact of all channels on the ultimate conversion.

The idea behind this panel session is to seek some perspectives on this conundrum and hopefully generate some ideas for marketers on how to view marketing spend and measurement more holistically rather than with a single channel focus.

Interested in your thoughts on this one.

…Whilst understanding the evolution of the consumer and how they consume is incredibly important in terms of the digital environment, and hence a large focus of marketers on social media and the opportunities which exist within the medium there is something being missed.  Well not so much missed as ignored, or not so much ignored as forgotten whilst they chase the next big thing.  It’s something more traditional media has managed to avoid in terms of the balance of older more proven mediums, and the next new type of marketing – they have struck a balance between older and newer types of traditional marketing which can work.  It has actually been a frustration of many online marketers that they still rely on those older channels rather than moving to digital but then maybe we make them do that?

Is it our fault?  Have we caused it?  Have we made traditional marketers and clients doubt us as digital people because every 3-6 months when you sit in front of them you talk about something different.  The next dream, the next ‘must have’?  Even when these people don’t have the very basics of online covered?

…people advertise online and it makes them think they need to be funky, they need to be on the “next big thing” and they need to be ahead of the curve.  Well whilst that is all fine and good what about actually doing business?  What about actually covering the basics off and actually trying to do what will work for an advertiser and not just make you look good to your friends, colleagues and in the industry?

When we sat at iMedia in various presentations there were brands (which I know) who were speaking about monitoring blogs and being on social networking sites who don’t do search because they can’t fit their T&C’s in the Ad – I mean seriously, IT’S 2008!!!  We’re talking about traditional direct response clients who completely lose their heads (and objectives) when they work online.

I agree that brands need to do certain things to increase profile, interact with consumers in the new environment and behave in a different way, but too many do that at the expense of the basics and their offline goals and then complain that online doesn’t deliver.

How about we actually look at what people aren’t doing, where the gaps are, and not always looking forward to the next trend.  Is it really just me who thinks that many advertisers could do with taking a long hard look at what they are not doing as basic marketing sense rather than thinking about how they link their bloody experiential marketing, their facebook page and their god-dam blog?

It is just crazy that people are not applying business sense to online.  We keep saying it is integrated, it is part of the main and it shouldn’t be treated differently but people do treat it differently, WE TREAT IT DIFFERENTLY AND THEN COMPLAIN THAT OUR CLIENTS AND OFF LINE AGENCIES DO!! People become such wankers concerned not with business but with the dream of what they THINK they can do and the brand halo they dream of creating. HONESTLY PEOPLE, WE’RE HERE TO DRIVE CUSTOMERS, whether that be through indirect brand recall and recognition or direct response through any medium, it doesn’t matter!

It’s not all about acquisition or brand, there must be a mix, but I know a lot of these advertisers and they have limited money, limited resource (marketing and technical) and very limited time – yet they still focus efforts on what could be deemed as fluffy and yet don’t spend where they can acquire customers even when that is their goal.  Brands should have to have the basics covered before they are even allowed to talk about the next frigging trend.

Facebook/Myspace, get over it!  What about tripod, angelfire and geocities – they all come, they all go and no-one gives a shit in a few years and whilst you just dropped 200k building a bloody profile page you didn’t do search, you didn’t do acquisition based marketing, you didn’t do what is actually important and why we all actually do marketing and advertising – TO GET CUSTOMERS.

Half of the fluffy people in advertising & media agencies need a slap in the head for not slapping their clients in the head and BEING HONEST.  Maybe we, as an industry would be far more respected if we didn’t always followed the trends but we started with the basics and let the client build up to the sugar on top.

And before anyone starts – I am not anti-branding online it is a huge component of what the medium has to offer.  I am not anti-social media, it is most definitely an integral part of so many peoples lives and we need to understand how we work with and integrate with that.  I just honestly believe we’d be a little more respected if we knew about the cool stuff, we knew about the next big thing, but our advice to clients was to start at the beginning and take it from there, to start with their company objectives and put them online.  That’s what it’s all about after all.