Marketing in the Age of Google: Your Online Strategy IS Your Business Strategy, Revised and Updated

USING DEMOGRAPHIC DATA

Microsoft Advertising Intelligence (an Excel add-in)8 provides demographic information about searchers based on the search patterns of MSN users. For instance, when looking at shoe searches, we see that 75 percent of searches for [Payless shoes] are from women, whereas men and women search for [running shoes] in nearly equal numbers (with the 25 to 35 age group searching the most, accounting for more than 28 percent of searches).

If we combine search volume and gender data, we can generate a shoe-related top 10 keyword list for both men and women (Figures 3.10 and 3.11). By volume, the top three shoe-related terms men search for are [running shoes], [Jordan shoes], and [Nike shoes]; the top three shoe-related terms women search for are [Payless shoes], [running shoes], and [DSW shoes].

Figure 3.10 Demographic Information: Searching for Women’s Shoes

Source: Microsoft adCenter

Figure 3.11 Demographic Information: Searching for Men’s Shoes

Source: Microsoft adCenter

This information could be highly useful to Nike. Their site currently isn’t on the first page of Google search results for [running shoes] (Figure 3.12). This was the case when I was writing the first edition of this book in 2009 and remains true now at the close of 2011 (even though the top related ...