WebProNews

Baby products and personal care products drew millions of searches over a three month period in early 2007, indicating growth potential for search engine marketing efforts by consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies. Yahoo, Procter & Gamble, and the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) teamed with comScore on a study of CPG-related search activity. They found plenty of interest from the web searching populace.

Food-related searches topped search interest during the study period, three months ending April 2007. Almost 44 million food product searches took place, followed by 15.7 million searches for baby products, and 9.8 million for personal care.

Those searches drive people to websites in those categories, as measured by comScore. 60 percent of baby product visits started with a search result. In the food category, 47 percent of site visitors came from search, while 27 percent did so for personal care products.

"While search marketing has long been recognized as an effective direct response vehicle, it’s been largely overlooked by CPG companies who focus on brand advertising and promotional efforts to drive in-store purchasing," commented Gord Hotchkiss, Chairman of SEMPO.

"This study seeks to demonstrate the potential brand-building impact of search for CPG marketers."