As you probably know, Search Marketing Expo (SMX) is a series of search marketing conferences and expos backed by Search Engine Land. In other words, it’s all about search, about getting people who are searching for something to click on a link to your web site. For most ecommerce sites, search plays a central role in traffic generation, bringing visitors to the web site.
But what happens when those visitors arrive? How does the web site hold their interest and convert visitors into customers after that click? That is the world of post-click marketing. So, it was pretty interesting to me that Gordon Hotchkiss, the CEO of Enquiro, one of North America’s leading search marketing vendors, reportedly had this to say at SMX West in Santa Clara this month:
“post-click marketing moves the needle for our clients more than any other aspect of search marketing.”
This observation, delivered as Mr. Hotchkiss was moderating a panel on Advanced Landing Page Strategies, is interesting for several reasons. First of all, one could argue that post-click marketing is not really search marketing at all. Sure, you can link search-derived traffic to post-click campaigns, but you can also run successful post-click campaigns that are entirely independent of your search marketing campaigns.
Second, one might infer that search marketing, currently a much larger and better established sector of the digital marketing industry, is seeking to take over post-click marketing. I don’t think this is the case, but I do think that some of the smartest minds in marketing, people like Mr. Hotchkiss, who have been working in search marketing for many years, are seeing two trends emerge.
On the one hand, search marketers have become so smart about search marketing that most well-run web sites are receiving about as much search-driven traffic as they can get. On the other hand, technology that enables smart marketing after-the-click has improved considerably in recent years. Adding personalized messaging throughout the site to target specific traffic segments at a very granular level is now a lot easier than it used to be.
So, perhaps 2009 will be the year that a critical mass of folks in the search marketing world come to see post-click marketing and web site personalization for what it is: the new key to increasing web site revenue, along with conversion rates, average order value and all the other metrics that matter.
I think the smartest marketers will recognize, and thus profit from, the symbiotic relationship between pre- and post-click marketing. For example, when it comes to converting visitors into customers, we’re finding that few things are as effective as consistency of messaging, from before the click through to landing pages and beyond. Segments of search traffic which are unprofitable in the absence of post-click marketing can be turned into a new source of profitable traffic when you apply the right post-click marketing touch.
