Software-Buying Decisions

This article on Organic Search Driving Software-Buying Decisions caught my eye since I have a continuing interest in Software Buying Trends. Some of the key findings from the research done by iPrsopect in their study on the effects of organic search, paid search and online display advertising were:

• 37% increased likelihood of visiting a website
  
• 30% increased likelihood of purchasing a software product
  
• 14% lift in brand recall with exposures to both organic and paid search results
  
• No change was seen in brand favorability based on organic results
  

Familiarity with a brand name has long been looked as important when making purchasing decisions. People tend to select things they are more familiar with, associating familiarity with reliability, so I have to agree that it is interesting that increased exposure didn't seem to have any impact on brand favorability. For a closer look at the research and findings see the full report on iProspect,Real Branding Implications of Digital Media - an SEM, SEO, & Online Display Advertising Study .