Keyword Research Tools Guide, Part 1: comScore Marketer and Hitwise

Clients often ask about the differences between search intelligence products.  To that end, here is Part 1 of our Keyword Research Tools Guide, designed to provide a quick overview of methodology, output and relative strengths for some of the key resources available to search marketers.

This initial write-up focuses on Hitwise and comScore Marketer, two of the major players that report on post-click data (i.e. not just ads served, but ads clicked).

Methodology: Hitwise’s primary data source is anonymous user data collected through ISP network relationships.  Search term data is calculated from the URL, including the query string.  Below is an example (emphasis added):

http://www.google.com/search?q=sweater

Hitwise augments its ISP-data with opt-in panels for demographic information like age and gender.  Specifics on the panel component are not fully detailed.

Search Data: Hitwise presents actual search terms used.  Clicks and “success” metrics are given to indicate website visits resulting from a search term.  A ratio of organic vs. paid clicks is also provided.  Hitwise does not approximate click numbers in its reporting, but instead presents its findings as shares or a proportion of total (i.e. “purple sweater” represented 7.5% of all traffic to Website X).   Demographics are available at the site level only.

Update Frequency: Hitwise search term updates are available approximately 24-48 hours following the end of a weekly period.  Data is not presented for a single week, however, but as part of a rolling 4 or 12-week period. 

Key Strengths: Timeliness and Breadth of Coverage.  A key benefit to Hitwise is the speed with which information becomes available.  This can be extremely helpful in monitoring movement and changes in a given market. Another upside to Hitwise’s ISP-based approach is that they tend to cover a large number of websites.  Small and mid-size marketers are likely to find competitive sites already actively tracked by Hitwise.

Methodology: comScore Marketer’s primary data source is an online panel that has opted-in to have their web activity monitored.  comScore recruits panelists through a variety of online benefits and incentives, including games, utilities and a green tree-planting initiative.  comScore puts its U.S. panel size at one million.

Search Data: comScore Marketer presents search terms used, with added functionality for broad and exact match.  A calculated number of paid and organic clicks are provided, as well as the ability to look at component words and phrases of a long tail term.   comScore Marketer also leverages both pre-click data (i.e. ads served) and post-click data (i.e. ads clicked) in its reporting.  Demographics are available at both the site and keyword level.

Update Frequency:  comScore Marketer data is updated monthly, available roughly three weeks after a month is over.  Data is available in monthly increments with the ability to choose any period between one to six months.

Key Strengths: Depth of Coverage and Calculated Clicks. comScore Marketer’s panel-based methodology tracks all user activity, so the aggregation and computation of that data can sometimes offer marketers deeper insight into user behavior and intent. comScore Marketer provides demographic data at both the site and individual search term level.  Another feature shows top sites visited by term searchers, highlighting destinations that are popular for searchers regardless of click-throughs.  And lastly, comScore Marketer calculates actual clicks for search terms (percentages are also shown).

Coming Attractions

The focus of this write-up is on products with a distinct click-based search intelligence component.   With my next post, I’ll look at a few of the other post-click research products like Compete.

Other planned articles for the near future include pre-click search tools that focus primarily on ads served, and finally an overview of key online audience measurement tools (unique site visitors, clickstreams) which would include not only Compete, comScore and Hitwise, but also Nielsen NetRatings, Alexa and several others.

Click here for Part 2 of the Keyword Research Tools Guide which looks at Compete.

Glenn Lalich is VP of Research & Analysis at PM Digital.