Protecting Your
Brand Online
November 2008
Heather
Hopkins
Lead
Analyst:
Heather Hopkins, Hitwise UK
Sandra
Hanchard
Senior Online Analyst, Hitwise US
Analyst, Hitwise Asia Pacific
Heather Dougherty
Research Director, Hitwise US
The power of competitive intelligence
©2008 Hitwise Pty. Ltd. All trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved.
1
Executive Summary
When customers search for your brand online – what do they find?
Marketers spend hundreds of millions of dollars developing their brands offline. How much of that spend
is going to waste as brand names are hijacked online? The problem is enormous. More than 1 in 10
US Internet searches for leading brands is led away from the brand owner’s website. Online businesses
need to be aware of the extent of the problem and to understand the best ways to deal with threats.
This report will quantify the extent of the risk to brands and provide specific recommendations to protect
a brand online. Hitwise data and tools are used to illustrate brand analysis and specific examples are
provided of how to use Hitwise to find and monitor companies trading on a brand.
Key Findings
87% of searches for leading e-commerce brands reach the brand owner’s website: Consumers are
more often lured away from the brand owner’s site when brand names are misspelled and when
generic words are included with the brand name in the query. (page 2)
Conversations shifting to Social Networks: Hitwise analysis reveals a 65% year over year increase,
and a three-fold increase over the past three years, in visits to Social Networks from searches for
leading brands. (page 3)
86% of all Internet searches are navigational: Navigational and branded searches (where there is
a clear intention to reach a particular website or brand) account for 86% of Internet searches, up
from 71% in 2005. (page 5)
Brand owners need to monitor which websites receive traffic from their brand searches and take
appropriate action: Companies have no control over how consumers spell or articulate their brand in
a search engine. It is vital that brand owners understand all of the permutations of brand expression
in order to get maximum benefit from costly brand campaigns and to minimise brand leakage.
(page 6-8)
The power of competitive intelligence
©2008 Hitwise Pty. Ltd. All trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved.
Brands Miss Out On Search Traffic
2
The Threat to Brands is Extensive
More than 1 in 10 US Internet searches for leading e-commerce brands send visitors to other websites,
including competitors and affiliates, reveals Hitwise analysis.
The analysis considered the 30 leading e-commerce brands1 in the Airlines, Appliances and Electronics,
and Insurance categories and revealed that in the four weeks ending September 27th, 2008 an average
of 87% of searches for the top branded search terms (i.e. “southwest airlines”, “usaa”, “best buy”) sent
visits to the brand owner’s website.
The extent to which brand searches reach the brand website varies greatly by brand but not by sector.
In the four weeks ending September 27th, 2008:
Only 87% of brand
searches go to the
brand owner’s website.
87% of brand searches for the top 10 Insurance provider websites and top 10 Appliances Electronics
websites went to the brand owner’s website compared with 86% for Airlines.
USAA was one of the most successful at protecting its brand, receiving 96% of visits from searches
for “usaa”. Similarly, United Healthcare received 94% of visits from searches for its brand and
Northwest Airlines 92%.
At the other end of the spectrum, a top 10 Appliances and Electronics retailer received 66% of visits
from searches for its brand, a top 10 Insurance provider 78% and a top 10 Airline 75%.
The issue of online brand protection is not an exclusive concern of major retail categories. In the four
weeks ending September 27th, 2008:
The #2 downstream website for searches for “drudge report” was Google News, receiving 3.79% of
visits from searches for the breaking political news site.
The website, BestWebGifts.com received 1.93% of visits from searches for “american red cross”.
The issue of online brand protection becomes more complex when we consider misspellings and
searches that combine the brand name with a key product term in the search string.
We saw earlier that 96% of searches for “usaa” went to the USAA website however that figure
dropped to 78% for searches for “usaa insurance” where 12% of visits went to USInsuranceOnline
in the four weeks ending September 27th, 2008. USInsuranceOnline was likely broad matching
on the term “insurance” meaning that it appears in paid results for queries that include the word
“insurance”.
While 90% of visits from searches for “southwest airlines” went to the Southwest Airlines website,
that figure dropped to 66% for searches for “southwest airlines reservations” in the four weeks
ending September 27th, 2008.
1
The analysis covered the top 10 Airlines, Insurance (excluding NetQuote.com and eHealthInsurance.com) and Appliances and
Electronics websites based on share of US Internet visits in the month of September.
The power of competitive intelligence
©2008 Hitwise Pty. Ltd. All trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved.
3
Brands Miss Out On Search Traffic
Conversations About Brands Are Also Shifting to Social Networks
In addition to competitive sites, brand searches are also leading consumers to social networks.
Hitwise data reveals that brand searches are being lured to Social Networking and Forum sites, posing
new challenges for brand owners. The following chart reveals:
A 65% year-on-year increase in visits to Social Networking sites from searches for leading brands
and a 3-fold increase over the past three years.
Appliances and Electronics brands need to be particularly aware of this:
4.41% of searches for “virgin mobile” went to Social Networking sites.
2.29% of searches for “tmobile” went to Social Networking sites.
1.69% of searches for “radio shack”, 1.09% of searches for “circuit city” and 1.21% of searches
for “best buy” went to Social Networking sites.
Visits from Searches for 30 Leading Brands to Social Networks
Hitwise analysis reveals
a 65% year-on-year
increase in visits
to Social Networks
from searches for
leading brands and a
3-fold increase over
the past 3 years.
The power of competitive intelligence
©2008 Hitwise Pty. Ltd. All trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved.
4
Brands Miss Out On Search Traffic
Brand Protection Efforts Reap Rewards
Action taken by major commercial airlines to tighten the reins on travel agencies to prevent agencies
and resellers from capitalizing on the airlines’ brands appear to be working.
For example, traffic from searches for the American Airlines brand2 three years ago made up
nearly 4% of visits to Travel Agencies. That is down to less than 1% for the four weeks ending
September 27th, 2008.
Searches for American Airlines Brand Terms to Travel - Agencies Websites
Action by brands
is reaping rewards.
Searches for the top
10 American Airlines
brand terms accounted
for less than 1% of
visits to Travel Agencies
in September 2008,
compared with nearly
4% in 2005.
2
The analysis was done using a portfolio containing the top 10 American Airlines brand terms.
The power of competitive intelligence
©2008 Hitwise Pty. Ltd. All trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved.
5
Brands Miss Out On Search Traffic
Branded Search is on the Rise
Hitwise analysis reveals that consumers are increasingly using Google and other search engines to
navigate to specific websites because people are using search engines to navigate the web:
Rather than typing a URL directly into an address bar or bookmarking a website, many users now
trust search engines to the extent that they just type a brand name into a search engine or into the
search toolbar in their browser.
An important reason for this behavioral change is prolific use of search toolbars. It is faster and
easier to type a website name into the search box than to navigate to that URL directly.
Hitwise carried out an analysis of the top 1,500 search terms in the US each quarter from the first
quarter of 2005 to the first quarter of 2008, categorising the terms into:
Branded/navigational terms (e.g. “facebook”, “cnn.com”, “expedia” - i.e. searches where there was
a clear intention to search for a brand or reach a particular website) and
Non-navigational terms (e.g. “flights to florida”, “free games”, etc.)3.
As the chart below illustrates, the share of navigational queries has increased significantly over the last
three years, from 71% in the first quarter of 2005 to 86% in first quarter of 2008.
Rise of Branded and Navigational Queries. Based on Top 1500 search terms for 12 rolling weeks
each quarter.
86% of internet
searches are
navigational, up from
71% in Q1 2005.
Share of Branded & Navigational Search
100%
75%
71%
71%
Q105
Q205
74%
74%
Q305
Q405
77%
83%
84%
87%
81%
86%
86%
86%
80%
Q206
Q306
Q406
Q107
Q207
Q307
Q407
Q108
50%
25%
0%
Q106
3
Some terms that may otherwise be considered generic were classified as branded terms (including “weather” and “people”),
as Hitwise Search Term Analysis revealed that consumers overwhelmingly visited one specific website (such as weather.com or
people.com) after entering that search query.
The power of competitive intelligence
©2008 Hitwise Pty. Ltd. All trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved.
How to Protect Your Brand Online
6
With branded search on the rise and these searches leading consumers away from the rightful brand
owners, what is a marketer to do? In order to act, firms need to measure the extent of the problem for
their own brand and quantify competitive threats.
Know How Consumers Search For Your Brand With Hitwise Search Term Portfolio
The first step is to create a Hitwise Search Term Portfolio to store all of the variations of ways that
consumers search for your brand. It is important for this Portfolio to reflect the way consumers search
for your brand rather than just the terms your own firm uses to describe the brand. The list will include
your trademarked name, misspellings and search strings that incorporate your brand with common
generic words used in conjunction with your brand. This Portfolio can be populated from:
Website Centric Tools: Your own website centric tool will offer a comprehensive list of search terms
consumers use to reach your website. Your search terms can then be uploaded via CSV spreadsheet
to your Hitwise Search Term Portfolio.
Hitwise Website Search Terms report: From within Hitwise firms can simply check a box to select
the terms to add to a Search Term Portfolio.
Hitwise Search Term Variations: This report shows the queries consumers perform that include your
brand name. Again a simple check box is all that is needed to add these terms to the Portfolio.
See The Websites Consumers Visit After Searching For Your Brand
Use Hitwise Search Intelligence™ to reveal the downstream websites visited immediately after a search
for a specific term or for a Portfolio of terms. For example, in the table below, we can see that 1.20%
of searches for the Southwest Airlines Portfolio of brand terms sent visits to Lowfares.com in the four
weeks ending September 27th, 2008, and that 88.07% of those visits were from paid clicks.
Websites receiving traffic from terms in Southwest Brand Terms
4 weeks ending September 27, 2008
Set up a custom
brand health monitor
Dashboard through
your Hitwise account
manager
(am.us@hitwise.com)
Further analysis of this Portfolio reveals that for the term “southwest airlines reservations”, Lowfares.
com received 20.65% of visits and the Southwest Airlines website only 66.33% of visits.
This report is updated weekly and can be accessed from the Search IntelligenceTM platform or a Brand
Monitor Dashboard.
Create a Brand Monitor Dashboard as a Brand Warning System
To monitor threats to your brand online over time, set up a Brand Monitor Dashboard. The Dashboard
will give you an at-a-glance status update on competitive threats to your brand online. Dashboards can
also be shared across an organization.
The power of competitive intelligence
©2008 Hitwise Pty. Ltd. All trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved.
How to Protect Your Brand Online
7
Take Action to Protect Your Brand
Protections From Search Engines
There have been a number of lawsuits brought against search engines by brands claiming trademark
infringement. In 2005, a legal case involving GEICO and Google ruled that the search engine was able
to sell the ad but that the trademarked name could not appear in the title or text of the ad.
The most basic action you must take is to contact the search engine if and when a competitor is
including your trademarked name in ad copy.
Making The Case To Bid On Your Brand
Some online marketers believe it is unnecessary to bid on their brand’s trademarked name when their
own site is already the first organic search result. However, as Hitwise Paid versus Organic Search Term
Analysis data reveals, competition is fierce for visits from brand searches.
The following table lists the top 10 paid search terms in the US for the four weeks ending September
27th, 2008. The list is dominated by brand terms, with “ebay” the top paid search term in the US.
Search Terms driving traffic to All Categories
4 weeks ending September 27, 2008
The main reasons that brand owners should also bid on Paid listings for their own trademarked brand
name are to improve ad placement, ad copy, landing page, and click-through rates.
Ad Placement: Bidding on your own brand name ensures that when consumers search for your
brand, your ad appears ahead of ads for competitors and affiliates. While in the organic search
results your listing may appear first, this could place your listing below three sponsored listings and
any search engine shortcuts (such as Local, Maps or Finance).
Text of Your Ad: Bidding on your brand name allows you to control the ad copy that appears in the
sponsored search result to highlight promotions such as free shipping, and to influence consumer
perceptions of your brand.
Landing Page: Bidding on the brand name also allows you to control the landing page. Online
marketers often find that different landing pages can alter conversion rates significantly.
The power of competitive intelligence
©2008 Hitwise Pty. Ltd. All trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved.
8
How to Protect Your Brand Online
For example, in the following example from Google, a consumer searching for “orbitz” sees paid
advertisements in the right column with links to BlueStarJets.com, SmartFares.com, CheapOAir.com
and Priceline.
Work With Affiliates and Partners
Many brands debate whether to allow partners and affiliates to bid on the brand name to secure the
top positions in search results. The benefit is that the “above the fold” search results are blocked by
your trusted partners and affiliates rather than competitors. The dangers are that the cost of your brand
terms becomes inflated and that consumers are lured away from your website to your own business
partners, who you may then have to pay.
There is no right or wrong answer and firms must evaluate this on a case by case basis. However, the
following guidelines may help firms who decide to go down this path:
Allow only your most trusted partners and affiliates to bid on your brand and consider starting the
process with a test with a few close partners.
Write into contracts with affiliates the terms of the agreement, such as:
Require affiliates to always appear below your sponsored listing
Cap affiliate bids to ensure they avoid driving up your media costs.
Require the landing page to display information on your brand alone with a direct link to
your website.
Provide a regular feed for content of affiliate ads to ensure up to date information in the ads and to
avoid duplicate content (and possible filtering by search engines).
Monitor affiliates by searching their websites, on the search engines and using Hitiwse. Look in
particular for misrepresentations and false claims.
The power of competitive intelligence
©2008 Hitwise Pty. Ltd. All trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved.
9
Appendix
Learn More
To learn more about the, please contact your Account Manager or email support@hitwise.com.
Hitwise Search Intelligence™
If you are not fully tapping into Search Intelligence for both your marketing and your research efforts,
you are missing a proven way to grow and protect your business.
To learn more about the New Search Intelligence™ tools visit:
http://www.hitwise.com/registration-page/new-hitwise-search-intelligence-us.php
Brand Monitor Dashboard
To set up a Brand Monitor Dashboard contact your Account Manager for assistance
or info@hitwise.com.
To have a Custom Brand Health Analysis performed by the Hitwise Client Intelligence Group contact
Anita Gandhi at anita.gandhi@hitwise.com or (212) 380-2902.
Visit the Hitwise University (http://clients.hitwise.com/university) to watch the recent Executive
Webinar - Fear Uncertainty and Doing Something - Using Hitwise data in a down economy.
About Hitwise
Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Only Hitwise provides its 1,500 clients
around the world with daily insights on how their customers interact with a broad range of competitive
websites, and how their competitors use different tactics to attract online customers.
Since 1997, Hitwise has pioneered a unique, network-based approach to Internet measurement.
Through relationships with ISPs around the world, Hitwise’s patented methodology anonymously
captures the online usage, search and conversion behavior of 25 million Internet users. This
unprecedented volume of Internet usage data is seamlessly integrated into an easy to use, webbased service, designed to help marketers better plan, implement and report on a range of online
marketing programs.
Hitwise, a subsidiary of Experian (FTS: EXPN) www.experiangroup.com operates in the United
States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. More information about
Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com.
For up to date analysis of online trends, please visit the Hitwise Intelligence-Analyst Weblogs at
http://weblogs.hitwise.com and the Hitwise Data Center at www.hitwise.com/datacenter.
For further updates on any of the topic covered in this report, please contact:
Rob Schatzel at robert.schatzel@hitwise.com or
via our website: http://www.hitwise.com/contact-us/contact-us-online.php
The power of competitive intelligence
©2008 Hitwise Pty. Ltd. All trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved.
10
Appendix
About Experian
Experian is a global leader in providing information, analytical and marketing services to organizations
and consumers to help manage the risk and reward of commercial and financial decisions.
Combining its unique information tools and deep understanding of individuals, markets and
economies, Experian partners with organisations around the world to establish and strengthen
customer relationships and provide their businesses with competitive advantage.
For consumers, Experian delivers critical information that enables them to make financial and
purchasing decisions with greater control and confidence.
Clients include organisations from financial services, retail and catalogue, telecommunications,
utilities, media, insurance, automotive, leisure, e-commerce, manufacturing, property and
government sectors.
Experian Group Limited is listed on the London Stock Exchange (EXPN) and is a constituent of the
FTSE 100 index. It has corporate headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, and operational headquarters in
Costa Mesa, California and Nottingham, UK.
For more information on Experian Integrated Marketing, visit www.experianim.com or call us
on 0845 234 0391.
For more information on the Experian Group, visit www.experiangroup.com.
Disclaimer
Some of the data presented in this report is based on custom data sets built for the purpose of this
report and not available in the syndicated Hitwise service. This research report may contain names,
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Use of this research report is at your own and sole risk. Hitwise disclaims any and all warranties or
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be derived from such information, obtained from Hitwise.
The power of competitive intelligence
©2008 Hitwise Pty. Ltd. All trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved.