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ARJAN DIJK: The main advantage of using AdWords is really
that we direct people when they're looking for credit
cards or for Capital One directly to a website in the
most efficient way.
So five years ago 90% of our new account bookings came from
direct mail.
If you look now, actually more than 50% of our new account
bookings come from the internet, where actually
search engine marketing plays a crucial role in achieving
those targets.
People want to research a product and they want to be
able to look around and then actually be linked with the
right website.
So I still think that direct mail has a role to play, but
its role has changed quite significantly from five years
ago to probably a more supporting role
in the overall mix.
We have a big television advertising campaign going on.
And you see then actually the power of search because people
see our television ads then go online, Google Capital One or
Capital One credit cards are directly
linked with the website.
And that gives us actually very effective results.
We can test certain messages that then directly can be
translated into other media, and with a proven
effectiveness.
Because if you know that things work really well in the
AdWords environment, then you can be pretty sure actually
that although direct multimedia things will work
really well.
If you compare a search engine marketing with other internet
marketing media and other media in general, you've seen
that actually it has been an incredibly effective medium
for us, generating great response, but also great what
we call cost to acquires.
So if you compare some campaigns we have done, you
see that they stack up very favorable, for example with
direct mail or with general display advertising.
So one of the great benefits of paid for search is that
it's almost instantaneous.
So if you compare paid for search with natural search,
natural search will take always a couple of months
really to bet down.
This has to do with our own infrastructure being in place,
but also the way, I think, that the Google part is
working and the search marketing
spots works in general.
So it will take two to three months to be up there in terms
of natural search listings.
Whereas actually paid for search you just say OK, we'll
pay for this work and then in a couple of hours'
time we'll be online.
The moment you rank high on paid for search and you rank
high on natural search, the effectiveness of your whole
campaign becomes actually much better.
And we haven't seen any cannibalization so far.
The future of search I think it's actually twofold in the
sense that I think complexity will increase, which will mean
that the way you manage campaigns actually needs to be
more and more sophisticated.
And at the moment we work with a leading digital media agency
who's really working around the clock to make sure the
everything works and that we're working with our
affiliate partners and display partners in the way that we
work with our search engines to optimize it completely.
So that's actually quite important, because, again,
your display advertising has an effect on your search
advertising and how does that all work together?
I think the second thing you would really see as the future
is how can you use search more for brand building?
I think we have used it very much as a performance
marketing tool where we really say, OK.
This delivers a certain return on investment and
we're happy with that.
The same with display advertising where you see that
rich media is playing a bigger and bigger role.
What is the role of search in terms of real brand building?
So it means links with videos and all that kind of stuff.
How can we use it to drive our brand equities that then will
drive business results.
But not necessarily a direct response as it
is very much now.
Going forward, I think Google will remain a very big
strategic of ours, mainly because the search engine
marketing campaigns we do together with Google have been
incredibly effective.