Live from BAI Retail Delivery : Online Search Engines Deliver Customers

Merickel also discussed “sponsored links” as a form of online marketing. A sponsored link is a description of a company with its url that appears on a search engine page when the consumer types in a certain word or phrase, say, “bank account.” These sponsored links are listed separately from results generated randomly during the search but are displayed prominently to catch the consumer’s eye.

“Sponsored search allows banks to insert their offering into the consumer’s consideration set and creates an opportunity to acquire new customers efficiently,” Merickel said.

Yahoo’s sponsored links program functions as a kind of auction. Businesses submit their listings under certain bid amounts. Yahoo screens them for relevance and sets the listings to pop up when the consumer types in the appropriate search word, Merickel said.

The sponsored links appear on the screen ranked according to the bid levels. When the searcher clicks on the sponsored link, a payment is generated from the listing company to Yahoo. Essentially, the listing company pays its bid price each time a searcher clicks through to its site.

Merickel provided some tips for optimal use of these sponsored links:

1. Connect your URL not to the bank’s homepage but rather to the relevant product’s page, so users don’t waste time finding what they want;

2. Since consumers usually search for products in one of three general categories – general, specific and brand – include terms under all three categories in your listing.

3. Develop a wide range of terms for your products to increase the probability your listing will turn up in a search. In addition to “banking account,” for example, use terms like “savings account,” “high-yield savings account,” “deposit account,” etc.;

4. Monitor and then refine the descriptive terms you use while the listing runs. “You’re not running a magazine ad for a month. You have the ability to change it day to day,” Merickel said.