Marketers have a one hour “sweet spot” when advertising online after potential clients go searching for information, according to research published last week by RadiumOne and IAB Australia.
The research report Solving Marketers Cross Channel Digital Conundrum looked at consumer behavior in response to digital advertising.
The research found delay between the moment that a consumer signals intent and the moment that an advertiser responds with an ad causes advertising performance to suffer.
“The greater the latency, the bigger the hit on performance,” the research found.
The research reviewed data from advertisers in the travel and finance industry “They found the first hour between when a customer signals intent to be the ‘sweet spot’ in terms of campaign responsiveness and willingness to convert.”
The research found a travel advertiser delivered 13% of ad impressions during the “sweet spot” to drive 81% of conversions.
By the second hour, conversion rates for the travel campaign dropped seven times lower.
Patrick Darcy, Asia Pacific commercial director of RadiumOne, told SmartCompany the research is particularly relevant to SMEs.
“The research demonstrates the importance of brands reaching potential consumers almost immediately after they show intent,” he says.
“We believe this insight is valuable for all marketers regardless of business size, but especially so for SMEs, who need to maximise the return from every single marketing dollar they spend.”
Darcy says small businesses need a technology partner with a single, integrated solution in order to capture potential clients in that one hour window.
“Multiple vendors are not viable for SMEs, nor does it allow them to execute with the speed needed to reach consumers in the sweet spot,” he says.
In SmartCompany and Crowe Horwath’s SME Directions Survey, which was published yesterday, 11% of respondents said they used search engine optimisation to market their business while 19.25% said they used social media as a digital marketing tool.
For those SMEs surveyed, word of mouth was still the most useful marketing tool, relied on by 37.5%.
But alongside customer and personal recommendations, digital is clearly of growing importance to SMEs, with only 4.25% relying on traditional marketing methods.
Cara Waters is the editor of SmartCompany. Cara was previously a senior reporter at the Financial Times website FT Adviser in London and has also worked for The Sunday Times.
