AUTHOR Malcolm Caldwell, joining a session for Google’s Decoding Decisions event, compared the world before digitalization as one that is information scarce and to get to an answer means solving a puzzle, with pieces of data putting it together. He then described today’s world as “inundated with information.” Sifting through that information overload is impact the way decisions are made. How fast, what kind, and the quality of the results.
80 percent of consumers today are facing difficulty making decisions because of too much information or too many options. This has impacted the path to purchase, creating what is called the “messy middle”.
The messy middle is a noisy space between triggers and purchase, where consumers are won and lost. This complex and emotional journey begins when they look for more details about a product or service which can be overwhelming given the abundance of available information.
But that huge amount of information can be harnessed, according to Google. At the Decoding Decisions event, the search engine giant looked into the research and discussed insights and best practices that can inspire brands to use Search to help and win consumers. This is where people lean on Google Search to decode their decision-making process.
“In a world where decision-making is more difficult than ever before, people are searching for answers. That’s why we are humbled that billions of consumers turn to Google to search for answers every single day,” Sapna Chadha, Vice President for Marketing, Google India, Southeast Asia, and South Asia said.
Throughout the messy middle, Google Search is the trusted place for consumers. It plays a crucial role in the exploration and evaluation phases, helping people streamline information as they search for the most relevant, accurate, and trustworthy options. Seventy-three percent (73 percent) of people say Google Search is their number one most preferred touchpoint when looking for relevant information across all categories.
“This pushes us to continuously improve to provide people with the most relevant and helpful information from the most trustworthy and authoritative sources to help them make better decisions,” Chadha added.
A successful example of navigating that messy middle is Nestle’s Maggi campaign in 2020 wherein it embarked on a project to improve the functionality, recipe service, and total user experience of its website. The brand is known for its seasonings and is one of the leading brands in the culinary market,
“Search was at the heart of our plan because it’s an integral part of our consumers’ cooking journey as they plan their meals. We used cross-platform audience lists to drive video viewers of the Maggi Philippines’ YouTube channel to the website,” Seaneen Arcilla, Service Pillar Lead, Food and Dairy Culinary Business Unit, Nestlé explained.
The campaign is effective in driving results. Metrics show that the cross platform approach of re-engaging video viewers on Search resulted in seven times higher click-through rate and 3.5 times higher conversion rate. In addition, 40 percent of website traffic comes from remarketing lists—a much higher percentage than they expected.
“Getting real time consumer insights from our website and turning consumer actions to marketing initiatives to drive business growth for Maggi enabled us to decode how consumers make purchasing decisions. This was pivotal to make our approach more personalized and data-inspired,” Arcilla concluded. — Raymond B. Tribdino
