70% of your search budget is wasted

I have a letter in today's NMA talking about the recent research by Atlas on Navigational Search.  On reflection, I'm slightly over-stating my case. The research suggests that 70% of clicks are related to brand terms and/or repeat visits. But brand terms will usually cost less than generic search phrases, so 70% of budget is a bit of an overclaim.  All the same, the research is still important and I think my argument still stands...

Recent research by Atlas on navigational search suggests that if a modern day Lord Leverhulme was investing in search marketing, rather more than half of his budget would be being wasted.

Looking at a sample of over 250,000 clicks on search advertising, Atlas discovered that more than half the resulting traffic were repeat visits to a client’s site.  Branded search – that is searches for a brand name like ‘Widgets’ or a URL like ‘Widgets.com’ made up over 60% of all searches.   Only 29% of searches were for non-brand searches – like ‘buy cheap widgets’ – by first-time visitors to a website.

Of course, there is a value to navigational search and to repeat visits.  But there is also a value to the activity that prompted those searches – like on- and off-line advertising, PR and word of mouth – a value that is not properly recognised by the ‘last-click-wins’ school of thought.  Perhaps the long awaited single planning currency will represent a giant step towards balancing online budgets away from search and towards genuinely brand-building activity elsewhere.