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Online Commercial Intent (OCI) Problem

by bizideas
14 replies
If you've got the time, could you take a stab at this question. What is the correlation between Online Commercial Intent and Number of Searches (exact phrase) on a keyphrase per month? What I'm looking for is a just general rule of thumb.
For example, just for easy math, let's say you find a keyword string that produces 5000 searches monthly and the OCI is 30%. Is it as simple as 1500 people have a commercial intent or is there some other derivative that should be considered? If it's that simple, what do you do with that 1500? Not all of those people are actually going to click. I mean, how do you go about estimating CTR?

Does the same principle apply for adsense vs. moving your own product?

Thanks in advance for your insites (pun intended :rolleyes.
#commercial #intent #oci #online #problem
  • Profile picture of the author bethsuzi
    Hi,

    The way I understand it is, the OCI has not bearing on the searches whatsoever. The OCI just relates to the keyword itself whether it is a "buying" keyword. There could be 5000 searches but most just want some advice or information.
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  • Profile picture of the author Melkor
    If you read the original OCI study from Microsoft you'll find that the tool was developed based on data from three interns on the project. It's statistically invalid and shouldn't be relied on as more than "three random people's feelings about what would constitute a buying keyword".

    You're better off just relying on the level of competition for a keyword as a guide to whether or not it's financially viable enough to give a ROI to advertise on it. If there's no competition, chances are there's no ROI to be had.
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    • Profile picture of the author Thomas
      Originally Posted by Melkor View Post

      If you read the original OCI study from Microsoft you'll find that the tool was developed based on data from three interns on the project. It's statistically invalid and shouldn't be relied on as more than "three random people's feelings about what would constitute a buying keyword".
      I was going to say this too... it seems like a pretty poor tool to be basing your decisions on (unless further studies have been done).

      Tommy.
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  • Profile picture of the author bizideas
    So should we be "ignoring" OCI stats? Why do developers write applications to include this parameter? How do you apply this research, if at all?
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  • Profile picture of the author Aaron Moser
    OCI just tells you if the keyword is going to attract someone interested to buy or someone only interested in free information. I can usually tell which keywords have commercial intent and which don't just by using my brain. I don't need a program to tell me this.

    Go for keywords that attract buyers! If the OCI tool gives you 30% commercial intent then that simply means 30% of the people who search for that term are looking to buy. 30% isn't great but it may be worth your while to target if the competition is low and the search volume is decent.
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    • Profile picture of the author Boudewijn
      Originally Posted by Aaron Moser View Post

      ...If the OCI tool gives you 30% commercial intent then that simply means 30% of the people who search for that term are looking to buy...
      Not quite. The OCI is a probability whether people will buy or look for info.
      It does not mean (in the given example) that 30% will probably buy, it just says that the likelihood of people using the given keyword/phrase will buy or not. Hence the advice given on some sites to use only keywords with an OCI of 50% and up. I use 65% and up.

      Given the data from Chitika you could estimate a bit what the sales will be like:
      Assume you get to the first position on Google.
      Likely you get about 35% clicks.
      Industry "standard" is that 1% will buy. (I dare question that "standard" but that is another discussion).
      If you have a buyer keyword and 10000 searches every month.
      35% of 10K is 3500.
      1% will buy, that is 35 sales every month.
      Using low OCI keywords "could" be a reason for low conversions making the current "standard" (just my opinion).

      FYI, I am not able to make a link to Chitika, I don't have enough posts yet. Google for: Chitika, the value of google result positioning.

      Sad to say however that adlabs slammed the doors again (march 27, also for the demographic prediction).

      I am still looking for alternatives for the OCI site from adlabs.

      Any idea is welcome.
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  • Profile picture of the author rtrotter
    I have a tool on my site that gets the OCI for a list of keywords you download from the Google external keyword tool. Google gives you the search volume and you can see the relationship to OCI.

    http://www.taguchisplittest.com/memb...l-intent-tool/

    The research done by MSN is significant. They look at search results and find characteristics on the paper that are associated with commercial sites such as buy or add to cart buttons. The percent of site found to be commercial and their weighting based on position in search all going into the calculation.

    Rodney
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    • Profile picture of the author Joe118
      Looks like a very useful tool.

      Originally Posted by rtrotter View Post

      I have a tool on my site that gets the OCI for a list of keywords you download from the Google external keyword tool. Google gives you the search volume and you can see the relationship to OCI.

      http://www.taguchisplittest.com/memb...l-intent-tool/

      The research done by MSN is significant. They look at search results and find characteristics on the paper that are associated with commercial sites such as buy or add to cart buttons. The percent of site found to be commercial and their weighting based on position in search all going into the calculation.

      Rodney
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      • Profile picture of the author scole954387
        Originally Posted by Joe118 View Post

        Looks like a very useful tool.
        When researching a market the more information you can obtain about your potential customers the better. OCI by itself it not very useful as there are many other factors that would determine if a keyword is worth targeting or not.

        Although I always have a quick look at the OCI numbers, I don't give it much weight when determining if a keyword is worth targetting or not.

        Shannon
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        • Profile picture of the author rtrotter
          Originally Posted by scole954387 View Post

          When researching a market the more information you can obtain about your potential customers the better. OCI by itself it not very useful as there are many other factors that would determine if a keyword is worth targeting or not.

          Although I always have a quick look at the OCI numbers, I don't give it much weight when determining if a keyword is worth targetting or not.

          Shannon
          Shannon, that is right on. For example, looking at search volume and total SERP results returned.

          Also, need to remember that the other side of OCI is non-commercial intent. If OCI is 20% then non-commercial is 80%. This is also an important number because it tells you what you should write pages about. Your visitor will read that information and then may take a commercial action on your site because you built trust with your information pages.

          I use the high OCI as a subset of words in Adwords campaign search side to drive people to sales letter and the non-commercial on the content side.

          Rodney
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          • Profile picture of the author Ahmed-Salah
            Originally Posted by rtrotter View Post

            Shannon, that is right on. For example, looking at search volume and total SERP results returned.

            Also, need to remember that the other side of OCI is non-commercial intent. If OCI is 20% then non-commercial is 80%. This is also an important number because it tells you what you should write pages about. Your visitor will read that information and then may take a commercial action on your site because you built trust with your information pages.

            I use the high OCI as a subset of words in Adwords campaign search side to drive people to sales letter and the non-commercial on the content side.

            Rodney
            man you amazed me i think you are a very good internet marketer
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  • Profile picture of the author rtrotter
    Read the Microsoft paper carefully. Yes it was written by 3 people but it is a automated scoring system based on content of pages returned in search for a keyword.

    Google's Page Rank paper was written by two people. You going to discount it in the same way?

    Rodney
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    • Profile picture of the author cgtarga1
      Rodney, You may have been right about MSN on your tool page. "They are either trying to prevent tools of this type accessing the page".

      It seems they have taken the entire site down.

      Do you know of any similar tool for OCI?

      Thanks
      Conrad
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      • Profile picture of the author Boudewijn
        Originally Posted by cgtarga1 View Post

        Do you know of any similar tool for OCI?
        Same question here. I used this tool a lot.
        MS is always doing things like this.

        I wonder why.:confused:
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