The lessons learned from in-store merchandising techniques are simple: the better the position, the better the results. That said, when someone does a search for the type of product you sell, shouldn’t yours be at the top of search results? While you’ll never be able to control the number of clicks that happen on a web site, the one metric that you can influence is clickshare, or your percentage of the total universe of clicks in your category.

There is no doubt that you’ll be inclined to keep an eye on other metrics such as click through and cost per action, but clickshare tells a new story.

How to achieve greater clickshare

You’ve spent months doing the research, carefully selected keywords and even hired an outside search marketing firm to assist you with improving your position within search results. Most of this effort is directed at the search engines, but with more and more research being initiated on retail and comparison shopping sites, you need to cast the net a little wider. When you are tasked to launch a particular product, it is important to look at each unique venue in which your product is being marketed and sold, and most search marketing efforts only do this to a point. As consumers are changing their shopping behavior, manufacturers are changing how they merchandise their products. One such way is through a technique called searchandising—the combination of on-site search and merchandising. If you’re not searchandising, you are missing a critical final step to getting in front of consumers and ahead of competitors.

In the brick-and-mortar world, retailers pay for premium spots such as the ends of the aisle or “end caps” to increase awareness and actively engage consumers as they conduct product research or commence the purchase process. On the web, these premium positions are the top spots on a search engine results page, featured product zones or any area where products are presented. Leveraging best practices from the merchandising world where manufacturers vie for position, coupling tactics from paid search where position is proactively managed by the setting of a cost-per-click bid, product marketers can now work to boost visibility on shopping sites. The bid becomes a weighting variable in how search results are rendered, and for the first time, retailers are offering manufacturers an opportunity to enhance their positions.

Now you’re probably asking yourself, what is the difference if you approach the retailer and pay for advertising opportunities such as banners, sponsored sections, micro sites and brand showcases vs. using CPC bidding? Unlike the previously mentioned advertising opportunities, with CPC bidding you only pay if a customer clicks on your particular product. Until recently, search results were previously unavailable space and have now opened up as a branding and sales opportunity. Knowing that 70 percent of consumers are inclined to click on top ten search results on an eCommerce or comparison shopping site, you might want to consider this new approach. The other advantage is that unlike online advertising opportunities, there is no incremental creative required.

Clickshare in action

In the weeks leading up to the 2008 holiday season, a leading GPS provider deployed its first pay for performance campaign, and dominated key product listing areas on category front pages across major consumer electronics retail sites. In fact, the company’s products occupied six of the top 10 spots across a network of leading retail sites.

The company had ownership of the marquee product listings and had premier placements in product search results—oftentimes the first or second spot. During the campaign, the company was able to increase its clickshare from 18 percent to 32 percent—a 72 percent increase, allowing them to displace competitive offerings whose products were featured less prominently in the search results. As a result of the company’s searchandising strategy and increased clickshare, the company converted thousands of browsers into buyers resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in incremental sales. Each product that was positioned as the first or second search result converted hundreds of additional browsers to buyers.

Another example is a major computer manufacturer who wanted to improve their positions across key sales outlets, in search results and in product showcases. Prior to this campaign, products were typically showing up on the second page of search results. After bidding for premium placement, the company’s products averaged the number seven spot in search listings, an 84 percent lift in position. During the campaign, the company increased clickshare for its desktop computers by 48 percent, displacing competitive offerings whose products were featured less prominently in search results. In fact, their primary competitor’s clickshare dropped by 22 percent, while the rest of the field dropped 12 percent and 32 percent respectively. Clickshare for the company’s laptops increased by 32 percent.

Lessons learned

Although there are other metrics used such as click-through and conversion rates, they are underestimating the retail process. You can’t control how many clicks a particular category will get but you can influence your share. Purchasing on the web happens in multiple sessions and also affects people when they go into brick-and-mortar stores. Clickshare is the only metric which can capture your share of any given clicks in a category.

What we have learned from the leading search engines is that marketers find paid search to be effective—its pay for performance model and highly measurable ROI are more easily justified than cost performance measurement-based offerings and mass media. The instant gratification of seeing brands move to the top of the list is beneficial for both advertiser and agency, not to mention consumers who deem the top listed brands as superior. But what is becoming more evident is that search engines only take the online purchase process so far. What happens with your brand once consumers have arrived at the online storefront?

Marketers spend billions of dollars each year on in-store promotion, end-cap and eye-level displays at the point of purchase in the brick and mortar world—and marketing has and will continue to work in that medium. The question is, how can these tried and true practices be translated to the web? Actually, quite easily, but it requires retooling traditional search techniques to combine cost-per-click bids with on-site search, creating virtual shelf space as a means of capturing buyer attention and mindshare. There’s absolutely no disruption to the user experience because it’s all managed in the background. For the retailer, bids are treated as an additional variable, or weighting factor, in determining sort order or product presentation. As such, retailers maintain complete control of the role those bids play, managing them in the same way that rules for margin, inventory and popularity are handled.

Technology in action

A leading provider of high-end televisions was looking to increase their clickshare and dominate search results on retail sites where buyers were looking at home entertainment systems. Much like their approach in the brick and mortar environment, this vendor was looking for ways to engage browsers and buyers at the point of purchase. In store, they are known for purchasing eye-level shelf space, interactive kiosks and end-caps to fully demonstrate products. Online, creating awareness and differentiation is a challenge, and the notion of attaining premium position by applying cost-per-click bids was worth a test.

Deploying the tactics discussed above, the advertiser was able to attain premium placement across a network of leading retailers. They had all the tools to manage reach, rank and revenue through familiar paid search tactics, manage bidding, track click and conversion data, and enjoy the halo effect of having products appear at the top of search results. On retailer web sites, premium placement was also available to the advertiser in general site search, on category and sub-category pages, in featured product listings and placement showcases—in short, wherever products were presented.

Within the first month of the campaign, this consumer electronics vendor saw its average position rise from fifth to first, and with the ability to bid by SKU, the number of products represented in premium positions on SERPs increased three-fold. In terms of clickshare, the measure of success for the campaign, the advertiser’s mix of products yielded a 30% increase and a 220% jump in clickshare; while the competition’s share dropped by 63 percent.

Whether online or in-store, the challenge for retailers is to connect manufacturers to consumers and to sell more products. Providing brand managers with the opportunity to achieve premium placement on shelf space across leading retail sites is a win-win for manufacturers looking to sell more product, retailers looking to create an additional line of revenue and buyers looking to make informed decisions. By building upon the best practices of the first wave of paid search but going one step further, combining the notion of cost-per-click and targeted, measurable reach within an identifiable target—retailers—they’re able to do just that.