Mining Google and Amazon for Search Data Can Lead to Marketing Gold

Why it's worth the time and effort

An interview with:
Wes MacLaggan
Senior Vice President, Marketing
Marin Software

Search data is valuable for search marketers for obvious reasons, but when this data travels to other parts of the marketing department and beyond, it can guide a company's broader marketing strategy in the right direction and offer a better experience for the customer. eMarketer’s Lauren Fisher spoke with Wes MacLaggan, senior vice president of marketing at ad management platform Marin Software, about why marketers need to keep mining search and other types of data to stay competitive. MacLaggan was interviewed as part of eMarketer’s August report, "Using Marketing Data for Merchandising: Optimizing Inventory Levels and Launching New Products."

eMarketer:

Marin Software has deep roots in search advertising, but do your clients also use search data to optimize their broader marketing efforts?

Wes MacLaggan:

One of the benefits we’ve always pushed with our platform is the ability to extract the data and insights and share that with other parts of the organization. How do you become more strategic as a marketer by providing that information to other areas of the company so they can make decisions?

Search is one such source of data. For example, Google’s search query report tells you exactly what people have searched. That’s a fire hose for any company to see what their customers are really looking for.

People don't usually search for the exact product. They search for something broader. Understanding and mining that data can be a valuable source of insight, both for the marketer and deeper in the organization.

The rise of voice search makes this even more of an opportunity. With voice, searches tend to be much longer, and that gives you more detail and more information to work with.

eMarketer:

What's a specific use case you see often in the search space?

Interview conducted on June 22, 2018

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