Many business owners have spent hours studying the purchase funnel and creating the perfect one for their companies. The purchase funnel offers an insight into customer behavior and how it leads consumers to make a purchase.Brands have shifted towards a linear and consistent purchase funnel to offer exceptional online experiences with digital marketing. However, consumer behaviors have changed over the years, making digital marketing efforts daunting for businesses. This is where search intent comes into play. Search intent is the primary goal a web user has when searching for a query in their search engine. There are four types of search intents: commercial, informational, investigational, and navigational. This article will discuss how to determine search intent and redefine the purchase funnel. Our team has plenty of experience guiding customers through purchase funnels. We help ensure your digital marketing campaign components align with your business goals and customer journey. Contact us today to schedule a personalized strategy call with one of our seasoned conversion experts.
How Do I Determine Search Intent?
The first step in determining search intent is understanding who your customer is. Start by conducting extensive marketing research and painting a picture of the people who purchase what you’re offering or the prospects you’re targeting.Once you identify your customer base, determine how they find your business. For example, what search queries do they type in search engines? Which social and search platforms do they use? Do they read reviews from their peers, or are they more concerned about pricing?Figure out where they’re likely to enter your purchase funnel, how they move through it, and at what stage they’re ready to buy.You can also leverage tracking tools, such as Google Analytics, to figure out where online users are entering your site and what search terms they’re using to find your brand, products, or services.If most prospects find you through your blog and your top keywords include questions on how to satisfy a need or solve specific problems, then your prospects are discovering your brand organically through SEO. They’re at the start of the buyer’s journey—the awareness stage. This means that these searchers want to learn how your products or services can solve their problems and make their lives better. Potential customers may also find your brand, products, or services when comparing similar services or products, in which case, their keywords might include the name of your competitors. Further, suppose your top keywords or entry pages include your product or brand name. In that case, your searchers are most likely beyond the awareness stage of your purchase funnel, and they’re most likelylooking to evaluate or compare your product.
How Do I Match Purchase Funnel Tactics to Search Intent?
You can make educated marketing decisions when you know where your prospects are in your purchase funnel. It also helps you align your users’ expectations better and thus increases more conversions from your funnel. Here’s how you can reap more benefits from search intent:
- Understand search queries. Understanding search queries better begins with determining patterns. Typically, search queries can help gather search terms insight, which ultimately can help you target the right customers and boost conversions across your purchase funnel.
- Improve your web content. Is there a page you think should rank higher but doesn’t? If that sounds familiar, it’s because you aren’t factoring search intent on your purchase funnel and content marketing strategies. Don’t just create new content—repurpose existing content, too. Repurposing existing content for search intent is one of the best ways to attract organic web traffic and boost conversions across your purchase funnel.
- Create content for the buyer’s journey. After identifying search intent and where prospects are entering your purchase funnel, analyze your content. Create new and relevant content to match search intent.
- Analyze scroll-through rates and time spent on web pages. After determining where search engine users enter your website, analyze how your content satisfied search intent. Create a list of your web pages with the highest page views and then analyze their scroll-through rates and time on the web pages. If searchers aren’t scrolling very far or spend less time on your pages, then there could be a search intent mismatch. Your keywords are right on target, but your content isn’t satisfying the search intent behind them. To encourage prospects to move through your purchase funnel and make a purchase, you must improve your current content and create new material that satisfies search intent.
What Ad Placements Should I Use for Different Steps of the Purchase Funnel?
At the top of the purchase funnel, prospects are in the “awareness stage.” These are your largest qualified customers, and either they don’t know they need your product, or they don’t need it yet. The key to connecting with customers at the awareness stage of your purchase funnel is simple: Make them aware of what you’re offering and the benefits they’ll get from it.Your goal on the awareness stage is to encourage prospects to move down your purchase funnel to the “consideration stage,” where the signs of purchase intent surface. Two primary online marketing strategies work more perfectly: display and social media ads. Social media platforms are crucial for your business to create awareness because that’s where your customer base goes to discover new things. Display ads are also powerful for marketing to users at the top of your purchase funnel. Google reports that the display network reaches nearly 90% of internet users across the globe. [1]Once your target customers identify their needs, they may move into the consideration stage. This is where things become tricky because most consumer research takes place in this stage, and the discovery and research loop takes them back and forth via different channels. During this phase, you need to create brand authority and get your target customers to your site. The best ad placements for the consideration stage are video and paid search ads. At the bottom of the purchase funnel, your target customers are aware of your business, have considered buying from you, and are one step away from purchasing what you’re offering. So as they move through the bottom of your purchase funnel, give them the nudge they need to spend their hard-earned cash. Continuing to target those who have already viewed your awareness and consideration ads is a brilliant way to create a sense of urgency. You can do this by offering a limited-time discount, a bonus gift, free shipping, or anything else to let them know that now is the right time to buy. Be sure to add clear visuals and a bold call to action to capture your audience’s attention and let them know exactly where they can purchase your products.Once a customer has completed the buyer’s journey via the ad funnel, don’t stop your ad strategy there—in fact, do the opposite. Your current customers are primarily loyal advocates for your brand. So by targeting them, you can request testimonials, user-generated content, product reviews, and even encourage repeat purchases. When creating post-purchase video ads, the goal is to remain recognizable to your customers. This means any fonts, brand colors, or images you used in your purchase funnel ads should appear here to capture the attention of your happy customers.
Final Thoughts
With search intent being one of the most important ranking factors today, it’s a brilliant idea to factor it into your purchase funnel to improve conversions. Not giving web users what they want will only cause high bounce rates. Also, it’s a fantastic idea to create a list of relevant keywords and categorize them by search intent. Whatever the model you use, ensure it addresses the multi-dimensional nature of web users, the role of brand advocates who aren’t yet your customers, and non-linear paths to purchase. Are you looking to push web visitors over the fence by encouraging them to complete their transactions when it matters the most? Then, contact us today to schedule a personalized strategy call with one of our skilled conversion experts.