This week we are publishing a report on online brand protection. This issue is huge for marketers with our research showing that more than 1 in 10 US Internet searches for leading brands is led away from the brand owner’s website. When you search for a brand in the phone book, you don’t find that brand’s competitors listed. But when you search online, that brand’s fiercest competitors often appear in the sponsored listings. Online businesses need to be aware of the extent of the problem and to understand the best ways to deal with threats.
Our analysis considered the 30 leading e-commerce brands in the Airlines, Appliances and Electronics, and Insurance categories and revealed that in the four weeks ending September 27th, 2008 an average of 87% of searches for the top branded search terms (i.e. “southwest airlines”, “usaa”, “best buy”) sent visits to the brand owner’s website.
USAA was one of the most successful at protecting its brand, receiving 96% of visits from searches for “usaa”. Similarly, United Healthcare received 94% of visits from searches for its brand and Northwest Airlines 92%.
At the other end of the spectrum, a top 10 Appliances and Electronics retailer received 66% of visits from searches for its brand, a top 10 Insurance provider 78% and a top 10 Airline 75%.
The issue of online brand protection is not an exclusive concern of major retail categories. The #2 downstream website for searches for “drudge report” was Google News, receiving 3.79% of visits from searches for the breaking political news site. The website, BestWebGifts.com received 1.93% of visits from searches for “american red cross”.
Things get more complicated for marketers when consumers misspell the brand name or combine it with a product term in the search string. For example, I mentioned earlier that 96% of searches for “usaa” went to the USAA website however that figure dropped to 78% for searches for “usaa insurance” where 12% of visits went to USInsuranceOnline in the four weeks ending September 27th, 2008. USInsuranceOnline was likely broad matching on the term “insurance” meaning that it appears in paid results for queries that include the word “insurance”.
While 90% of visits from searches for “southwest airlines” went to the Southwest Airlines website, as you can see below, that dropped to 66% for searches for “southwest airlines reservations”.

Action taken by brands to protect their brands reaps rewards. For example, we found that steps taken to tighten the reins on travel agencies to prevent agencies and resellers from capitalizing on the airlines’ brands appear to be working. Traffic from searches for a portfolio of the top American Airlines brand terms three years ago made up nearly 4% of visits to Travel Agencies. That is down to less than 1% for the four weeks ending September 27th, 2008.

The report includes steps marketers can follow to protect their brand online. You can request a copy of the report here or by emailing csm.us@hitwise.com.