An Empirical Investigation - Essay Example

?How to select search keywords for online advertising depending on consumer involvement: An empirical investigation This essay summarizes and examines Kim, Park, Kwon, & Chang’s ‘How to select search keywords for online advertising depending on consumer involvement: An empirical investigation’. The article’s introduction focuses on the nature of marketing and advertising in the contemporary Internet environment. In these regards, a number of elements related to functionality are articulated. The introduction also details the substantial economic impact that is occurring within the realm of online advertising, as close to $200 billion dollars are estimated to be spent in the 2007-2011 market period. In terms of specific marketing elements, the key word search areas have seen a particular upsurge. The article discusses how the efficacy of Internet advertising is determined by examining return on investment (ROI). In these regard, a two part structure of brand awareness and click through rate. This is an important notion, as the research demonstrates that keyword advertising is significantly more successful than banner advertising when efficacy is measured through click through rate standards. The article then considers the essential elements advertisers must consider when constructing key word advertising. In these regards, the articulate states that the main considerations are, “(1) which keyword to select, (2) how much to bid for each keyword, (3) how to design the text ad and (4) how to design the landing page” (Kim, Park, Kwon, & Chang, pg. 1). The remainder of the article examines the relation of online search keywords and consumer involvement through a number of metric standards of measurement. In the overview section the article discusses the various metrics that are implemented in examining the efficacy of key word advertising. In these regards, one of the overriding notions is the extent that metric markers can determine how effective advertising is in converting interest in advertisements to actual product purchases. The article presents a literature review of major methods in this area of investigation. Another major area of consideration is how the methods of calculating the charge for paid search advertising are conducted. The most important factor is the ability of the website to be featured among the top sites in a keyword search. Indeed, this becomes the predominant indicator of keyword search success throughout the research. The interaction between keyword efficiency and sales then becomes investigated through a few select metrics. The article then articulates its specific theoretical background and hypotheses. In these regards, four micro-conversion rates are described, each demonstrating a means of measuring individuals click through rates with actual purchases. Each of these have specific shortcomings, yet they lead to the first research hypothesis: “The conversion rate for keyword advertising in a product category has a positive relationship to keyword ad efficiency” (Kim, Park, Kwon, & Chang, pg. 4). The research indicates that effectiveness is product specific, leading to the second hypothesis, “For low-involvement products, the number of active competitors has a positive relationship to keyword ad efficiency” (Kim, Park, Kwon, & Chang, pg. 15). The remaining eight hypotheses investigate the relation between keyword searches, product types, and user impressions, with a variety of relational elements. After establishing the main hypotheses and theoretical assumptions, the article advances the overriding research design and data descriptions. In terms of the research methodology, it’s indicated that ANOVA and regression analysis was implemented based on Web log statistics and other related factors. In these regards, the research advances a number of strategic initiatives that balance product and advertising elements as a means of achieving optimum profit margins. In further investigating these correlations the research collected data from the Korean National Statistical Agency. Survey data examined the extent that Korean students considered products high end of low end products as related to their price. The research was conducted in terms of cosmetic products. Further considerations within this category involved the duration and frequency of the product use, as it was recognized that these factors would be related to consumer involvement. The research test involved comprehensive keyword analysis using forty-eight keywords for cosmetics and forty-eight keywords for sportswear. The keywords were selected because, “(1) keyword search frequency, which should be at least 200 impressions per day and (2) the importance of keywords, which means that the candidate keywords in an ad’s product text belong to the ‘Best-100’ for each category” (Kim, Park, Kwon, & Chang, pg. 11). It’s also notable that brand keywords were divided into a specific category labeled brand. The article revealed a number of notable results and implications. In these regards, the study revealed that the results showed the main effect of conversion rates for both low-involvement products and high-involvement products was significant. The insignificant data was the effect of the other data, including the co-variates. Within this understanding it is revealed that the first hypothesis was accurate. Further results demonstrated that, “the effect of the number of active competitors on keyword ad efficiency was positive and significant for non-brand keywords of low involvement products” (Kim, Park, Kwon, & Chang, pg. 12). Similarly, brand keyword ad efficiency was also demonstrated as significant. Within these understandings, hypotheses 2 and 3 are both demonstrated to be accurate. In terms of insignificant result findings, it was demonstrated that the relation between click-through rate and keyword ad efficiency was not significant. The study surmised that there were a number of factors that contributed to these elements, most prominently the position of the ad on the site. In terms of hypotheses 5a and 5b, the change in the conversion rate was measured along a number of reviews. Ultimately, the study revealed, “that high-involvement consumers searching for high-involvement products are willing to type in braded keywords to purchase the specific brand products instead of typing non-branded keywords” (Kim, Park, Kwon, & Chang, pg. 13). These results were also effective in proving the accuracy of the findings in regards to hypotheses 6a and 6b. Finally, the study implemented a three-way interaction conversion and key-rate chart to determine that hypotheses 7 and 8 were also accurate. The study ended with a conclusion section that examines the results and provides a brief discussion on the findings. In these regards, some of the notable insights and overriding findings were that the study validated the effects of the keyword searching factors of impression, click-through rate, conversion rate, the number of competitors, and the number of reviews. The concluding section also considered the areas of the study that foregrounded research. While previous studies investigated the effects of consumer involvement on purchase intention through experimental surveys, no research had measured these factors when related to keyword searches. Another important foreground element that this study presented was the relation of consumer involvement in relation to the performance of individual keywords. The concluding section also highlights the importance of reviews in terms of perceived product popularity as being the most important factor in effective keyword ad efficiency. Previous research had demonstrated that when high involvement consumers are given simple recommendation reviews purchase intention slightly increased until a number of moderate reviews emerge. One of the prominent aspects of review based information processing concerned the number of reviews. When there are a significant amount of reviews considered to be of substantial length to make decision-making processes, consumers check how many remaining reviews there are before deciding on the purchase. Finally, it was demonstrated that with budget constraints consumers respond more to brand keywords for high involvement products, and non-branded words for low involvement products. References Kim, Park, Kwon, & Chang ‘How to select search keywords for online advertising depending on consumer involvement: An empirical investigation.’ Expert Systems with Applications. (2011) Read More