ClearSaleing: Your Guide to Digital Marketing in 2012

Advertising research organization ClearSaleing released the report A Guide to Market Leadership in 2012: A ClearSaleing Online Advertising Study. The report analyzes 56 billion advertising impressions and the $13 billion in revenue it brings to discover the trends and rules that affect digital marketing in 2012. ClearSaleing divides the customer path into three steps: 1. The introduction stage; 2. The influence stage, which is between the introduction stage and the near-purchase stage; 3. The near-purchase stage, which is the last mile for users to achieve conversion. The conclusion of the report subverts people's traditional perceptions of social media, display advertising and paid search, and suggests that advertisers should rethink their 2012 budget spending:

Key findings:

ClearSaleing's online advertising research provides strong support for the role of social media in creating and strengthening user intent and improving conversion quality.

• Social and display ads drive higher revenue : Although social media is not the highest-volume channel, social media impressions on the path to purchase drive higher-value orders, with revenue per order of $280, higher than the combined revenue per order of organic and paid search ($230.07). Display ads on the conversion path increase revenue per order by 65% ​​to $206 from the overall channel average revenue per order of $135.37.

• Social media brings high-quality conversions : Social media has been proven to be a core channel for increasing purchase intent. When social media is displayed in the user's purchase path, the revenue per click of social media is $5.24, which is 20% higher than paid search ($4.38) and 84% higher than natural search.

• Display advertising import capabilities vary : Premium publishers have twice the import rate of ad networks and four times the import capacity of DSPs during the import stage, which are 8.4%, 3.62% and 1.58% respectively.

• Paid & organic search performs better than you think : Paid search can bring 8.8% order increase compared to the previous advertising order amount, while organic search can bring 10.91%. Although performance marketing will be reduced by 6.41% under attribution analysis, high-quality performance networks that focus on incremental and revenue growth can still bring revenue growth.

When analyzing users’ search and shopping behaviors, 2012 undoubtedly brings many opportunities for online marketers. Whether it is driving registrations, acquiring memberships or selling products, all marketers are facing new facts. Those companies that understand the customer conversion path and can clarify and innovate their channel mix will be ahead.