MarketLive released a report on how online retailers can maximize search engine effectiveness in terms of bringing traffic, conversion, customer loyalty, engagement and other critical variables. Called the MarketLive Performance Index, the report provides very interesting data on the effectiveness of search engine results.

Here are some of the data from the report:

• Search marketing drives 28% of visitor traffic on retailer sites, on average, and as much as 36% for some retailers.
• Search engine marketing significantly contributes to a retailer’s sales, with traffic coming fom Google generating nearly 14% of an e-retailer’s revenue, through Yahoo, 3.25%, and through MSN, 1.87%.
• Among the top 3 search engines, MSN provides a greater percent of return (9.48%) and loyal customers (5.11%). Relative to percent of overall traffic, Google brings in 7.85% return customers and 3.69% loyal customers; while Yahoo provides 8.58% return customers and 4.46% loyal customers. The study recommends considering MSN in search marketing as keywords competition is less strenous. I suspect though that a return customer (defined in the study as having made 2-3 purchases) and loyal customers (4+ purchases) would not use the search engines but directly go to the merchant’s website.
• Comparing natural and paid search, natural search results bring in more traffic and revenues to an ecommerce site. Paid search, however, delivers higher conversion rates with 16% more visitors who clicked on paid search converting to buyers. The study found conversion rate from paid search to be 2.93% compared to natural search’s 2.52%

The study offers so much more data and information that can help you plan your search marketing strategies. Download the study from MarketLive