The views of the public at large often tend to be at odds with the views of those of us who work in online media and interactive marketing, but according to Performics' 2010 Search Engine Results Page (SERP) Insight Study, the knowledge gap might be closing more quickly than I thought.
A few of the many interesting findings as outlined in the press release include:
More than three-quarters of respondents search to learn more about a product or service after seeing an ad elsewhere.
Searchers are tenacious – if at first they don’t succeed, they will modify their search and try again (89 percent), try a different search engine (89 percent), and go through multiple search results pages if necessary (79 percent).
Fifty-six percent at least occasionally click on real-time results.
Forty-three percent at least occasionally view or click on sponsored video ads.
Nearly two-thirds know the difference between natural and sponsored search results, with those age 18-29 most likely to be aware of the difference.
Several marketing outlets have already covered the recent study, including: