Online
contact with customers, such as searching for information on your smartphone or shopping on e-commerce sites, has become indispensable for business expansion. People’s online information seeking behavior is highly complex, and the process from search to purchase is not linear. In order to expand your customer base online, measures that follow the traditional linear model of consumer behavior won’t work.
In this article, we will introduce key points for expanding your customer base online, as well as companies that have achieved results by utilizing new online advertising.
Increasingly complex information search behavior – Key points to expand your customer base online
People’s information search behavior online is not linear, but moves back and forth between “search” and “consolidate” searches. This is called the “butterfly circuit,” and there are multiple patterns when people make purchase decisions, such as “instantaneous,” “subjective,” and “serious.”
In today’s world, where people’s information seeking behavior has become increasingly complex, simply having online contacts does not necessarily lead to expanding your customer base. Google suggests two things to help you expand your customer base online:
1. Expanding the number of points of contact with customers
2. Improving user experience (UX)
From here, we will introduce the success stories of SBI Holdings, which expanded its reach and gained new customers online, and M3, which improved conversion rates by improving UX.
Success story of SBI Holdings “Insweb”
Insweb, operated by SBI Holdings Co., Ltd., is a site where you can compare insurance quotes all at once. Since many people conduct thorough research when choosing insurance products, search ads that attract customers using highly relevant keywords account for the majority of ad distribution.
However, with search advertising, there are a limited number of keywords that can lead to conversions, and the company’s operations are directly affected by increases or decreases in the advertising volume of its competitors. To solve these challenges and reach more potential customers, the company adopted TrueView actions for YouTube ads. TrueView Actions lets you overlay eye-catching calls to action and ad headlines to generate leads and drive conversions.
As a result of distributing TrueView actions in parallel with search ads for eight weeks, the cost per acquisition (CPA) decreased by 23% and the conversion rate (CVR) increased by 40% in the second half of the operation period, demonstrating significant effects.
Up until now, Insweb had focused on search advertising, but by expanding its reach by adding TrueView actions as a new measure, it succeeded in cultivating new customers. A multifaceted approach that reviewed existing measures was successful.
Success story of M3 “Medicine Care”
Yaku Care, operated by M3 Co., Ltd., is a career change platform for pharmacists. The company ran advertisements targeting unregistered pharmacists as potential customers, and was able to achieve sufficient results in expanding awareness of drug careers.
Having succeeded in gaining recognition among drug carriers, the company next sought ways to increase CVR by encouraging registration for the service. However, it was difficult to induce potential customers who were in the consideration stage and did not have a concrete career change plan to register for the service, so we first needed to lower psychological barriers. Therefore, the company decided to use a “lead form extension” that allows the registration button to be displayed in search ads.
By setting the lead form display option, a registration form will launch with one click from your ad, simplifying the steps leading up to inquiries. By eliminating the need to navigate to the website, the psychological barrier that prospective customers had was lowered, leading to an improved user experience.
As a result of advertising operations using the lead form display option, CPA was reduced by 17% and CVR increased by 14% compared to conventional advertising operations, which proved to be highly effective.
The reason for the success of this initiative is thought to be that we reanalyzed prospective customers and identified issues. The optimal approach to prospects who were still in the consideration stage and had not taken action led to them taking the next action.
summary
◆People’s online information search behavior goes back and forth between “search” and “consolidate” searches, and this is called the “butterfly circuit.”
◆As people’s information search behavior becomes more complex, the following are key points to expand your online customer base.
1. Expanding the number of points of contact with customers
2. Improving user experience (UX)
◆Insweb, which had previously focused on search advertising, succeeded in cultivating new customers by expanding its reach by adding TrueView actions as a new measure.
◆By reanalyzing potential customers, Yakuh Care has simplified the steps leading up to inquiries and improved the user experience.