Ad Campaigns for Voice Search Require a Human Touch
Originally published November, 2022 at: content26.com/blog/ad-campaigns-for-voice-search-require-a-human-touch/
Microphones are integrated in all manner of modern devices: smartphones, smart speakers, and even inside of our cars. The ability to talk to our devices has fundamentally changed the way that many people communicate and interact with online services. Why punch away at a keypad when you can use voice search to ask your query out loud?
Studies estimate that 35% of the US population owns a smart speaker in 2022, and 85% of Americans own a smartphone. Sales of smart speakers were immense during 2018 and 2019 before eventually slowing down, but business conducted using voice search is steadily increasing. A study by Juniper Research posits that e-commerce transaction values via voice assistants will rise from $4.6 billion in 2021 to $19.4 billion by 2023. It’s estimated that 62% of American adults use voice technology on their smartphones and smart speakers in 2022, and 58% of them use voice commands daily.
How Is Voice Search Different than Traditional Search?
Depending on what type of device you are using, the complexities of voice search differ. Many apps on your phone will allow you to simply speak into the microphone and your voice will be instantly transcribed, letting you find an address hands-free while you are driving or quickly translate a phrase while traveling in a foreign country.
When using a smart speaker equipped with a digital assistant, like an Amazon Echo with Alexa, the voice search function is a bit more of a conversation. There are myriad ways to interact with a digital assistant, including asking questions (“Alexa, what is the state flower of Washington?”), simple commands (“Alexa, play Beyoncé on Spotify.”), or shopping (“Alexa, re-order dishwashing detergent from Amazon.”). When you ask your digital assistant questions, it responds to you as a human would, using full sentences.
While Amazon is happy to let you use their digital assistant to amass trivial knowledge, they really want you to use their smart speaker to buy products. About a third of “avid online shoppers” use voice functions to buy something at least once a month, and those who do spend an average of $136 more than people who shopped online the old-fashioned way with pointing and clicking.
What Are Shoppers Buying with Voice Search?
The top category that consumers buy with voice search is groceries, with 48% of those shopping with digital assistants using voice commands to restock their fridges. Other popular categories for voice shoppers are toiletries and beauty at 38%, home essentials at 36%, clothing at 30%, and pet supplies at 24%.
Unsurprisingly, the top items that customers feel comfortable ordering with voice commands are largely items that they have already purchased in the past and are simply re-ordering. Especially with Alexa, where the digital assistant is directly linked to your Amazon account, re-ordering everyday items using voice commands is almost effortless.
Voice search is also very popular for researching new products. Asking a digital assistant questions about an item is fundamentally similar to visiting a brick and mortar store and striking up a conversation with a sales associate, with the added bonus of not having to leave your house. But many shoppers are still simply not comfortable enough buying a new product entirely with voice, and will use a digital assistant solely to learn about the item before completing the purchase with a screen.
How Should Brands Adjust Ads and Content for Voice Search?
Figuring out how to make the sales process as seamless as possible between voice search and conversion is a big task for e-commerce brands right now. The goal is to ensure that voice assistant platforms create a user experience so seamless that transactions are carried out via the voice platforms itself rather than requiring additional devices.
Understanding how people speak to digital assistants compared to text search is essential. Customers using voice search speak to the digital assistant in proper sentences, whereas they may only Google vital words while searching with a keyboard. Brands looking up voice search keywords need to use conversational language in order to contend for the top voice search spots. The majority of voice searches are conversational, so voice search keywords need to sound as if a human is saying them.
Similarly, long-tail keywords are significantly more important in voice search than they are in traditional search. Long-tail keywords consist of three or more words in a search term, while short-tail keywords are only one or two. Long-tail keywords target broader concepts and user intents, like asking the ways to cook with and clean a cast iron pan instead of simply looking to purchase one. Because they are more nuanced than short-tail, long-tail keywords generally have a lower search volume, competition rate, and cost-per-click (CPC).
Since the majority of voice search is the asking of a question, these words become essential to long-tail keywords:
Who, what, when, where, why, how, which
Can, could, should, would
Is, are, was, will
Do, does, have
Understanding all the ways potential customers might search for your products using simple questions and conversational language is the key to discoverability with voice search. And while many customers may not yet be comfortable using their smart speaker to finish the sale, an smart omnichannel approach that allows them to begin the process on one device and finish seamlessly with another is key to adapting to current trends.
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