The Online Advertising Playbook: Proven Strategies and Tested Tactics from The Advertising Research Foundation

Consumers Search for Personally Relevant Information

Search interests are as diverse as online searchers. Just as many of us read the Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, the New Yorker, and USA Today, we’re just as likely to indulge our pleasures, follow sports, or shop through catalogs. It’s the same for search. In fact, a majority (55%) of searchers strike a work/life balance; half their searching is “important to them” and half is “trivial” (Fallows 2005). Searchers like having fun and doing their business, just as we all do offline.

People search widely—any topic is fair game—but most searches in a typical day or week relate to pop culture (music, movies, TV, celebrities, games); seasonal activities; holiday; or current events. The big search engines list popular keyword searches, providing keyholes through which marketers and general users can glimpse searchers’ myriad interests. On June 18, 2006, Yahoo! Buzz Index listed World Cup, U.S. Open, Britney Spears, Shakira, WWE, Paris Hilton, FIFA, Angelina Jolie, RuneScape, and Lindsay Lohan as the 10 most popular search terms. Six months later, on January 16, 2007, Britney and Lindsay had stayed but the others had been displaced by other hot celebrities (e.g., Fergie, Beyonce, Victoria Beckham) or more timely sports (e.g., NFL) (Yahoo! Buzz Index 2006, 2007). AskIQ, Google Zeitgeist, AOL Hot Searches, Lycos 50, and MSN Search Insider are some of the many lenses advertisers use for insight into searcher trends.

Going beyond individual ...