AOL Search Back, a second chance at the click you missed the first time
When it comes to search, it used to be that you bought the keyword, it was clicked or it wasn’t; if it was, the person bought or he didn’t.
Then we saw “re-targeting” from companies like Revenue Science and a few others. If a person clicks, and he doesn’t buy, you show them ads (it was just text, now it is text or display) throughout the Revenue Science network of partner sites. You know these folks are interested, but you didn’t hit the mark the on the first click. Now you can try different messages and keep talking to them until they convert, or for a set period of time.
But what if you missed the mark on the click? Almondnet developed technology to target people based on the searches they conducted even if they did not click on your ad. The problem is, they are focused on verticals (mostly tech). Not something most mainstream advertiser can leverage. Around since 1998, they have learned a great deal. They just need to scale.
Well, this week at the AOL Road Show in Chicago, AOL mentioned (rather casually) “Search Back”. Partnering with Revenue Science on BT, and leveraging their search volume as well as there own network of sites, AOL takes post search (not just post click) targeting to mainstream advertisers. There properties cover approximately 90% of US internet users. By knowing your audience, you can message well targeted users even if they did not click on your search ad (though, if they converted with someone else, this is too late). If you really understand them, how about targeting them just before they are in market (think search on “prenatal care”, and mini van ads in about 9 months).
I was critical of Google’s BT search approach (personalized search) because we could not easily segment messaging (yet). AOL has addressed that. With Revenue Science’s optimization technology, this is going to be leaps above where we are.
The rumor is that we should see something in Q2. There are categories that can be targets, or you can have custom targeting (about 200 keywords). AOL was presenting this as part of their overall BT package in February. The timeline appears to be consistent.
