Google Defies Madison Avenue Resistance with Dominating Sales Performance

Results from Myers Annual Advertiser Survey

Although advertising and media executives publicly report they perceive Google as a threat to the traditional media buying and selling infrastructure, Google continues to prove it can play on the other guy's home field. Among 20 portals and search engines, and even among all 125 online sales organizations evaluated in this year's Myers Survey of Advertising Executives on Online Sales Organization Performance, Google outperformed all other websites across every sales performance attribute measured. Additional details are available at jackmyers.com.

Google’s Overall Performance Power Score was 64 (up from 54 in 2006). In comparison, the next highest Overall Performance Power Score among 19 portals, search engines and commerce sites (for CNET) was 50. Yahoo! Search Marketing and Yahoo! had the third and fourth ranked Overall Performance Power Score (49 and 46 respectively), while AOL Media Networks ranked 5th with an Overall Performance Power Score of 43. Google was the only portal, search engine or commerce site that ranked in the top ten of all 125 sites. CNET had the next highest ranking (15) across all sites measured, while Yahoo! Search Marketing was ranked 21st overall based on its Overall Performance Power Score.

• USAGE: Among all respondents, the percentage who purchased advertising across search engines remained relatively flat year over year. Stated usage of each of the major portals increased year over year. With the exception of Yahoo! (with nearly full penetration), those who spend 75% or more of their time on online advertising have had an even larger increase in their claimed usage of portals year over year. Fewer total respondents claimed to use CNET (31% down from 37% in 2006), while usage of eBay increased from 13% to 18% (possibly due to representation partnership with Yahoo!). This points to the increased reliance and power of the major portals in the marketplace.

• AVERAGE ATTRIBUTE RATINGS: Across the five attributes rated for each website, knowledge of products, content and competition and responsiveness of sales reps rated higher on average across the 20 sites included in this category than the other attributes (37% and 36% top two box respectively). Overall value of the relationship to you as well as the organization delivering on promises were both rated 31% top two box on average. Organization offers valuable non-traditional opportunities was rated the lowest (22% top two box). Individual ratings for some of the major portals were twice as high as these average ratings. However, clearly there is a lot of potential improvement in terms of the perceptions of online sales organizations.

• Myers Power Scores provide a unique view of the overall performance of each site across all attributes, with attributes weighted according to their importance and influence on the media planning and buying process. These scores were used to determine the sales organizations that have the highest quality relationships with advertisers and media decision makers.

The Overall Performance Power Score attributes evaluated include:

• Sales Reps are responsive to my needs and interests
• Sales Reps have knowledge of product, content & competition
• Organization delivers on promises
• Organization offers valuable non-traditional opportunities
• Overall value of the relationship to You

Overall Performance Power Score

Prior to asking about specific websites, we asked respondents for their unaided recall of “online media sales organizations that provide the best overall support for your marketing and media buying needs.” The top four websites on an unaided basis were the four portals, with Yahoo! leading at 39% unaided mentions. This same pattern held across both clients and agencies (with clients having slightly higher mentions for each site). However, among those who spend 75% or more of their time planning or buying online media, Google ranked fourth in unaided recall.

• OVERALL VALUE OF THE RELATIONSHIP: We saw increases across the board year over year in top two box ratings for “overall value of the relationship to you.” This reflects the increasing importance of online advertising in the overall marketing mix, as well as a sign of a maturing marketplace. Google saw a 6% point increase year over year (from 62% to 68%), while Yahoo! saw a 5 percentage point increase from 45% to 50%. MSN increased from 30% to 42% and AOL Media Networks grew from 35% to 41%. The most dramatic increases in value of the relationship were among CNET (28% in ’06 to 59% in ’07) and eBay (15% to 31%).

• MEETING WITH A SALES REP: For all of the major portals and search engines, a greater proportion of our respondents had personally met with a sales rep in the past 12 months versus our 2006 survey. Although the minority of our respondents did not meet with the major players, it is clear that this personal interaction has a huge impact on the perception of the web sites. Those who did not meet with a Google rep had an Overall Performance Power Score of 35% vs. 69% among those who met with a rep. For Yahoo! Search Marketing, that same difference was 31% vs. 51%., and the Overall Performance Power Score ranking for About.com was 32% among those who met with a rep versus 10% among those who did not meet with a rep. Clearly investing in a strong and dedicated sales force impacts advertisers and agencies perceptions.

• ONLINE SPECIALISTS: Overall, half of our respondents spend 75% or more of their time focused on planning or buying online media. In general, those who specialize in online media were more positive about the online sales force across attributes. Some notable differences in Overall Performance Power Scores include AOL Media (46 among those who spend 75%+ on online media vs. 36), and MSN (40 vs. 31).

The sales organizations of one hundred twenty five (125) websites were evaluated for the 2007 Myers Survey of Advertising Executives. Respondents evaluated each sales organization on five attributes, using a one to seven scale, with one representing extremely poor performance and seven representing excellent performance. The performance rankings incorporated into this report are based on the percent of respondents who rated each organization "6" or "7" on the seven point scale, also referred to as top 2 box percentage. Additional details are available at jackmyers.com.