A study by comScore found that Canadians web users performed many more searches than their American counterparts. According to comScore’s test, “approximately 85 percent of the Canadian Internet population conducted at least one search at the top engines each month, compared to 73 percent of the U.S. population.”
With this many searches being done by the Canadian people, keyword advertising would offer a nice return on investments made by advertisers. A comScore’s study hypothesizes this as well.
Brent Lowe-Bernie, president of comScore Media Metrix Canada had this to say about Canada’s potential for SERP advertising: “With more than 60 percent of home users accessing the Web through a broadband connection, it didn’t surprise us to find that Canadians are more frequent search engine users. These numbers should offer a clear indication to search providers and marketers that Canada is fertile market for search engine advertising.”
Another interesting find from comScore was the percentage of search engines used by the Canadian searchers. Not surprisingly, Google is the search engine of choice. It’s the percentage of users who select Google that catches the eye. 62% of searches done in Canada are performed with Google.
The second most used search engine was, like the United States, Yahoo. However, unlike the US, Yahoo percentage of users was surprisingly small. The Life Engine, as its called in Yahoo’s new marketing campaign, managed only 15% of search engine traffic. That’s right, second place only pulled a 15% share.
Third place, along with the category called ‘All Others’ shared the remaining 24%. I think it’s safe to say that Google controls the Canadian search market. It seems like a good time to steer Google advertisers north of the US border.
However, a humorous, alternate opinion from MarketingVOX suggests ignoring these findings altogether. A quote from their article titled Filtering Canadians May Improve ROI says, “This (the study), combined with the fact that Canadians spend far less online, makes these impressions much less valuable to advertisers.”
Murdok | Breaking eBusiness News
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