Ontario Tourism Does Not “Get” Search Marketing

I have seen this kind of situation many times over the years but this one is perfect. 2 weeks go, Gord Hotchkiss, the most renowned search expert in Canada made a blunt statement saying that Canadian advertisers have their heads up their ass and that Canada is clueless about search marketing. In his article, Gord explains that he was in an hotel room during Search Engine Strategies in Toronto and made a few obvious searches such as Ontario vacations, Ontario resorts, Toronto vacations, Ontario getaways and Ontario holidays in an attempt to see if Ontario Tourism would appear on the radar. Zip. According to Google Trends’ keyword research tool, these are the most common searches for Ontario, by a substantial margin. Any half-decent search marketer would conclude based on this 30 second experiment that a major chunk of the search marketing opportunity is wasted and that Ontario Tourism is clueless. 

Now, Ontario Tourism defends itself and they are saying that Gord’s claim was “wildly inaccurate” and that Ontario Tourism does in fact have “an extensive search program.” Really? According to the most recent article on this episode that is called “ ‘Doing Search’ Only Counts If You’re Seen” it’s one thing to say “we’re doing search” internally—and it’s a totally different thing to have the searcher realize that yes, you’re doing search. There is a fundamental disconnect there which is why most Canadian search experts agree that Canadian advertisers aren’t clueing into the power of search. They are missing out on obvious opportunities and they don’t factor in searcher behaviors.

Maybe the budget was limited which is why they could not include head terms (aka. heavily searched key phrases). A little more digging in the way their advertising budget is used allowed to discover that most of the advertising dollars go to TV and print (loads of it apparently) and the goal of this campaign is to drive traffic to the site. Yes, you read it right. What a waste! Here is the quote on how the budget is used:

But in this case, are budgets really limited? Let me share some things I was able to dig up on Ontario Tourism’s site. First of all, the tourist bureau is doing print (lots of print) and TV (lots of TV). The goal? To drive people to its Web site. Full-page 4-color ads are running multiple times in over 70 dailies and weekly newspapers and 9 magazines. One 4-color full-page ad in the Toronto Star would run about $54,000 (there’s a certain amount of guessing here, as print rate cards are really a mathematical exercise in confusion and frustration). Circulation of the Toronto Star is 350,000 (on an average day). An excellent conversion rate for a newspaper ad would be 0.5% That means, ideally, 1,750 people would actually visit the Ontario Tourism website. Now, I have never in my life seen a newspaper ad convert this well, but even if it did, that would be a cost per visitor of $30.85. If the ad doesn’t work that well, the average cost climbs dramatically. And you pay whether or not the ad works.

And it goes on like this. The complete experiment, supported by key research and shopper behaviors, concludes that, according to 97 out of 100 people who are using search to find the official site for Ontario Tourism, the tourism bureau is not “doing search.” Read the full article here and please start making sense with your advertising budget. Otherwise don’t be surprised to make the headlines and potentially not in a flattering way. Make sure you blog about it so everybody knows.

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Comments

1. There is a fundamental disconnect there which is why most Canadian search experts agree that Canadian advertisers aren’t clueing into the power of search. They are missing out on obvious opportunities and they don’t factor in searcher behaviors.

   Posted by white water rafting on 03/25 at 10:45 AM

2. A little more digging in the way their advertising budget is used allowed to discover that most of the advertising dollars go to TV.

   Posted by shade sails on 04/19 at 01:52 AM

3. I have to disagree with this comment. I know that canada has some good experts doing SEO and proof of this is just the tons of websites own and SEO’d by Canadians.

   Posted by Mac @ Motorcycle Fairing on 09/15 at 03:25 PM

4. Very informative about Canada’s situation in the internet market.

   Posted by Ray Ban Aviator on 10/02 at 08:02 AM