Search Market Audit – Singapore Airlines

Singapore Airlines, a case of supporting the business strategy.

• Brief

In 2006 Singapore Airlines (SIA) decided to review their AsPac SEO activities. They felt that they should be improving their performance in the Organic or Natural Search arena, but like many companies their SEO was lacking a strategic plan, budget allocation or accurate metrics, indeed they could barely describe themselves as equipped with a strategy. Before embarking on a technical optimisation project they needed to know how “success” could actually be measured and defined.

SIA engaged ISM, through their local digital agency, to report on the size and nature of the specific Search Markets they perceived themselves to be in. They asked ISM to identify the players, the opportunities, and the competitive standard required to become the leader in each chosen market.

• Search Market Audit

ISM began by using it’s unique analytical tools to carve the data points, indexing a clear and natural market segmentation model. This is usually the first step towards a successful research programme for the client as it produces meaningful insights as early as possible. Just as with paid search or PPC, key phrases for SIA were assembled in naturally comprehensible micro-groups and the model assembled.

Then using ISM’s proprietary algorithmic tools a picture of market share and value was built up. From this data the current position was benchmarked. Market leaders were identified along with their share of the Consideration Set,* and the competitive standard required for SIA to compete successfully in each of the different segments.

• Analysis

The traffic volumes and levels of optimisation varied between markets, however it became clear that even if they rebuilt their website completely, they would have to embark upon a major digital “push” to establish the kind of reach that the competitors in this space held.

The problem for a “real world” company like Singapore Airlines, is that by entering the online travel market, even in the less aggressive AsPac e-commerce market, they were late to market. The market leaders are “pure-play” businesses relying on search engine optimisation for significant percentages of their traffic and hence sales. They have had both in-house teams and the best agencies working on improving their rankings for a number of years previous to 2006.

Working with their assigned ISM analyst, SIA were able to prioritise opportunities and threats creating both an immediate and a longer-term set of objectives.

None of the medium term objectives were to enter the natural search market place.

Instead, the objectives that came from the analysis were centred around the commercial relationships SIA already had with the market players they had identified. For instance, one of the aggregators that lead the market in natural search was historically considered to be representing the SIA brand very poorly with little exposure and was rewarded accordingly with poor discounts on the flights. The reality of the data proved to be the reverse and therefore prompted SIA to revisit the commercial terms with that aggregator. Conversely, another travel aggregator, the sixth placed market leader, enjoyed the best commercial terms with SIA. The market share gap between leader and sixth place was significant and SIA therefore decided to set exposure targets for this partner to reach to maintain their commercial terms.

• Results

Working with their assigned ISM analyst, SIA were able to prioritise opportunities and threats creating both an immediate and a longer-term set of objectives.

None of the medium term objectives were to enter the natural search market place. Instead, the objectives that came from the analysis were centred around the commercial relationships SIA already had with the market players they had identified. For instance, one of the aggregators that lead the market in natural search was historically considered to be representing the SIA brand very poorly with little exposure and was rewarded accordingly with poor discounts on the flights. The reality of the data proved to be the reverse and therefore prompted SIA to revisit the commercial terms with that aggregator. Conversely, another travel aggregator, the sixth placed market leader, enjoyed the best commercial terms with SIA. The market share gap between leader and sixth place was significant and SIA therefore decided to set exposure targets for this partner to reach to maintain their commercial terms.

Consideration Set – usage studies have shown that most users mental shortlist for consideration are the top four results on a Search Engine page, also known sometimes as “Above-the-fold.”