ComScore Adds Competitive Search Data to qSearch

Media measurement firm comScore Networks plans to offer what it’s calling Competitive Search Marketing Reports. The new product allows agencies, publishers and online marketers to compare the effectiveness of their campaigns and those of their competitors.

Available data includes sponsored ad analysis across any competitive sets and across a range of search categories. Clients can run reports on existing categories in the Media Metrix qSearch universe. There is also the ability to customize criteria for more finite results.

“It’s pretty much the full depth of online activity for keyword search data,” said Jack Flanagan, EVP at comScore Media Metrix.

The company is introducing Competitive Search Marketing Reports in recognition that a significant portion of the total ad spend is represented by search, Flanagan said.

“The way that we’re seeing the greatest value is to help marketers benchmark across the competition on a level playing field against a panel of users,” said Flanagan.

Recent reports stress the importance of transparency from search engines due to concerns over click fraud. Earlier this week Google said it would release statistics on click fraud to advertisers. Flanagan said the panel-based data from comScore’s reports serves advertisers’ needs with actual clickstream data.

“What this really addresses is that it’s not subject to click fraud issues,” said Flanagan. “It’s real-time human activity versus activity that is not human-related and falls under click fraud.”

The Competitive Search Marketing Reports is part of the Media Metrix qSearch suite of products. The suite provides analysis of activity across competitive search engines. Recent additions to the suite include a retail tracking tool.