News from Google
Google Australia offers Christmas stimulus for small business
Announcement
SYDNEY, 24 November 2009: With the countdown ’til Christmas on, Google Australia is offering a Christmas stimulus to help Australian businesses make the most of the next month. Google is offering a free $100 search marketing campaign for businesses to reach the record number of Australians researching and shopping online this festive season.
Though 2009 was a difficult year for many businesses, recent reports suggest that small and medium enterprises are slowly beginning to recover and consumers are starting to spend again. Google has seen strong search query growth in areas including apparel, restaurants, travel, and beauty services. (See the statistics on the growth in search queries, below).
William Easton, Google Australia’s Retail Industry Leader, said: "This holiday season, consumers are researching their purchases online more than ever before – whether it’s Christmas gifts, travel plans, local restaurants or home furnishings. There’s a significant opportunity for Australian businesses to tap into search marketing to further drive Christmas sales. There’s still time in ’09 to be found online."
Tens of thousands of Australian businesses are already using Google AdWords to reach new customers and grow their business in a cost-effective and measurable way. Google’s $100 Christmas bonus applies to new AdWords advertisers and should be claimed before 31 December 2009 at google.com.au/stilltimein09.
Stimulus success: 3,000 businesses took up Google stimulus offer in April
This Christmas bonus from Google follows a business stimulus offer in April 2009 that was taken up by more than 3,000 Australian and New Zealand businesses. From restaurants to retailers, accountants and yoga studios, businesses came from every state in Australia and New Zealand and across multiple sectors of the economy.
- Nikita Jones, owner of web design firm Design Junction, says: "We received Google’s stimulus offer in the mail and started our AdWords campaign with a budget of $10/day. We soon found that leads from AdWords were twice as valuable as traditional marketing: the value of our average acquisition grew from $5-10k to $10-20k with AdWords. We’ve since canceled our other marketing and spend $40/day with Google."
- Marcus Johnson, marketing manager for Paul Sadler Swimland, says: "Over 40% of our website visitors find our site with Google AdWords. The stimulus coupon was a helpful incentive for us to try search marketing and begin to grow our business online."
- Sam Lockie, lead designer for Landscape Transformations, says: "We saw an initial spike in traffic when we first signed up for the AdWords stimulus offer. Since then, our traffic has almost quadrupled, and we now also use Google’s free analytics tool to understand more about our customers."
- Bonnie Leung, owner of Tickle Me Designs, says: "Since starting Google AdWords, I’ve seen a 40% increase in traffic for my online wedding invitation business. As a new business owner, AdWords helps me compete with larger, more established businesses and understand exactly which ads are most effective for driving sales. Our conversion rate from AdWords is now triple that of other marketing efforts."
New Local Business Centre Dashboard announced
In addition to a free $100 search marketing campaign, Google is also announcing a new dashboard in the Local Business Centre in Australia and New Zealand to help business owners understand how people are searching for and interacting with their online business listing. The dashboard will show information like which search queries led users to the business listing and how many times users clicked through to the business’s website.
Business owners will be able to identify trends, such as days of the week when interest
in their business spikes, or seasonality in the types of searches that lead potential
customers to their listings.
The dashboard is accessible to any business owner who has claimed his or her listing in the Local Business Centre. Business owners who do not yet have an LBC account can quickly create one for free by visiting www.google.com.au/lbc.
-Ends-
About Google AdWords
Google AdWords is a program for advertisers that places ads next to users’ search queries on Google search and also places ads on Google partner sites across the web. On Google search, AdWords are the brief, 4-line ads that show up as "Sponsored Links" at the top or right side of the page when you conduct a Google search. Advertisers choose the keywords they want ads to appear alongside, can choose what region to target, and only pay if a user clicks on the ad. Prices are determined through a keyword auction and can range from a few cents to a few dollars, depending on the keyword.
Australian search growth by the numbers*
*All numbers compare October 2009 to October 2008
The Australian National Retailers Association and American Express Annual Christmas
Survey of 1,000 Australians found that 55% of Australians had done some Christmas
shopping online in 2009 compared to 45% in 2008.
The Australian Centre for Retail Studies found that 50% of Australian shoppers research
their retail purchases online before they get to the store to buy.
Retail
- Shopping-related queries were 49% higher
- Apparel-related queries were 55% higher
- Home furnishing-related queries were 64% higher
- Queries for luxury goods were 44% higher
- Queries for beauty and personal care were 49% higher
Financial services
- Accounting and tax-related queries were 26% higher
- Credit card-related queries were 37% higher
- Banking and personal finance-related queries were 30% higher
Travel
- Travel-related queries overall were 37% higher
- Air travel queries were 38% higher
- Hotel/accommodation queries were 36% higher
Real Estate and houses
- Real estate-related queries were 37% higher
- Gardening-related queries were 36% higher
- Home furnishing-related queries were 64% higher
Technology
- Mobile phone-related queries were 40% higher
- Queries for televisions were 56% higher
- Software-related queries were 25% higher
Local
- Restaurant-related queries were 44% higher
- Club and nightlife-related queries were 40% higher
- Queries about spa and beauty services were 57% higher