Today I lost a bet by wagering against the web savvy of the average American. While generally a safe gamble, the people proved me wrong. Only 5% of searches are for strings users could have just typed directly into their browser. I had guessed much higher.

As most search analysts know, the top drivers of search traffic to your domain are basically always the domain name and its common misspellings. It has always served as good online analytics small talk over how frequently one of the top 10 search terms is literally the exact URL of the domain. The second biggest driver of search traffic to compete.com is the search phrase “compete.com.”

To figure out how often this happens across the Internet we analyzed all of the search queries made across all the major search engines in April. We found that 5% of queries were for URL strings that the user could have typed directly into their browser. Specifically, we queried what percentage of searches had no spaces in them and included either “.com”, “.net” or “.org”. Since our panel is U.S. based we didn’t look at searches for international sites.

I had bet that fully 15% of searches were going to be navigational.

We call these kind of navigation searches ‘mom searches’ after our beloved mothers, who are exceptionally proud of us here at Compete, but frequently baffled by what we do. That said, there are a plenty of good reasons for typing a URL into a browser. The 5th most searched for domain is hotmail.com, which no longer exists and instead currently routes you to live.com. No doubt hotmail users are still wondering where their domain went. My favorite reason, not surprisingly, is that it’s a quick way to search for meta-information about that site (though coming to Compete.com is faster).

Also of note is that domains are not necessarily searched for in proportion to their overall popularity. The most searched for domain, myspace.com, is 10th in terms of unique visitors to the domain itself. Many of the searches for this site are actually people searching for specific pages or bands such as myspace.com/DataRocks.

Marketers invest a significant amount of time and money in online marketing campaigns aimed at delivering positive post-click advertising experiences. However, less than 1% of ads get clicked on and 95% of those clicks never lead to a sale. In fact, post-click experiences vary so widely in the same market, it’s likely that one competitor is converting more than five times as many customers than other competitors in the space.

Compete looked at the post-clickthrough conversion rates among wireless carriers. Across 20 campaigns, an average of 3.4% of those who clicked through an ad and visited the carrier’s landing page purchased online from that carrier in the same quarter. In the top quartile, this jumped to 7.8% of visitors. In this instance, improving performance from the bottom quartile to average or best-in-class could translate into a 2-6x improvement in conversion. Assuming the cost of changing the landing page experience is minimal, this increase in conversion would be a direct increase to ROI.

In the credit card space, we have seen instances of campaigns with even greater disparity in conversion between competitors.

Given these kinds of disparities, and the potential for quick, direct improvements to ROI by boosting post-click through performance, we think CMOs spending money in the Online Channel should all be asking their teams some questions:

• What is the Best in Class performance in our industry for engaging and (if applicable) converting people who click on our ads?*
• Where do we stand in relation to Best In Class?
• What can we learn from all the other campaigns our competitors are running?

*According to Compete analysis, Chase and Citibank campaign conversion outperformed American Express and Capital One by 15-30x.

You probably won’t be surprised to learn that Compete has a few thoughts about the answers to these questions. For some immediate things you can do to improve your company’s landing page experience, visit the replay of our recent webinar.

From what I hear, the iPhone is big news these days. I wouldn’t know. In a case of exceptionally poor timing, I scheduled my vacation for mid-June and have traded iPhone hype for breath-taking scenery and limited media access. I’m sure this would be fun for some. I’m in media withdrawal. So I’m back on the grid, eager to check out the results of Compete’s recent iPhone survey.

We found that 1.2% of respondents reported they were both likely to buy an iPhone and pay over $500 for it—a substantial increase from the first time we asked (five months ago, when the device was announced and 0.3% of respondents fell into this category). While a smaller percentage of respondents said they were likely to buy the device than five months ago, this decline was more than offset by an increase in the number of shoppers willing to spend over $500 on the device.

Just after the initial announcement of the iPhone in January Compete surveyed 379 people about the device. The survey targeted respondents who had been observed researching an iPod online in the preceding month. In the first week of June, Compete surveyed an additional 680 iPod researchers to look at attitudes toward the iPhone just before its launch. Compete targeted recent iPod shoppers in both surveys in order to keep the results comparable and to target consumers who were more likely to be aware and informed about the iPhone.

The most significant change among respondents: the percentage of shoppers reporting they were “very likely” or “extremely likely” to purchase an iPhone shrank from 26% to 15% between January and the first week of June. As shoppers have become more aware of the device’s price and exact feature set, it is not surprising that the unrealistic expectations of five months ago have been replaced by a more realistic assessment of the iPhone’s actual features and price.

Even though a larger share of shoppers report they now are willing to pay the iPhone’s steep price, they still remain the minority. Among even those who said they are likely to buy an iPhone, only 8% were willing to spend over $500 on it. That said, the percentage is still 8x more than a similar segment was willing to pay in January.

For those interested in the iPhone, switching carriers is not a major impediment. A quarter of the people interested in the iPhone (who are not already AT&T Mobility customers) said they were very likely to switch carriers to get their hands on the phone. Sixty percent of those very likely to buy an iPhone said they would switch, which is consistent with the 59% of the same segment who said back in January that they would switch carriers for the iPhone.

The primary reasons for not switching also remained the same: consumers do not want to pay early termination fees, the price of the iPhone is too high, and, despite wanting the iPhone, most admit that their current carrier’s handset line-up adequately suits their needs. The danger for AT&T’s competitors is that when their customers’ contracts lapse and the price of the iPhone drops, two of the major switching barriers will be removed.

When it comes to the iPhone itself, respondents primarily care about whether or not it will work as a high-quality phone. Surpassing issues of design and music integration, consumers said the top criteria in their decision to purchase an iPhone were price, phone performance, battery life and ease of use. These are consistent with the top criteria consumers use to evaluate any phone. “Overall design and look of the device” scored much lower than usual as an area of concern, presumably because consumers are already confident in the iPhone’s design and have shifted their concerns to other aspects of its functionality.

And even though issues about the touchscreen have gotten a lot of ink lately, the concern didn’t make the top three. Only 16% of respondents said they were concerned about the difficulty of texting using a touchscreen compared to 25% who were worried about the phone functionality not being as well developed as the music functionality.

On the other hand, consumers did express worry about the device’s data connection speeds. Given the difficulty of representing data connection speeds to general consumers, Compete asked, “If Internet browsing speed on the iPhone was closer to a dial-up modem than to a cable/broadband modem what impact would this have on your decision to purchase the iPhone?” Fifty-eight percent of those who said they were likely to buy an iPhone reported that this information would make them less likely to purchase an iPhone.

AT&T will have to carefully set consumers’ expectations about when and where the device will be able to surf the Internet at broadband speeds (and where consumers will have to pay data charges). This opens up an opportunity for the other service providers to talk about their networks and potentially challenge the iPhone.

Overall, the iPhone must work as a phone before it can expand its market beyond diehards. In the meantime, other manufacturers have an opportunity to leverage their capabilities and reputations as makers of great phones to deliver better products at affordable prices. It’s worth remembering that for most consumers, a phone is just a phone and will stay that way for quite a while. In Compete’s survey, 55% of respondents said they would still rather carry separate devices for their music and phone calls.

Compete is fortunate to be able to talk to and observe millions of Internet users. We see millions of people buying things online, but we also see plenty of products and services that people research online and then head out to the store to touch and feel before they purchase. In fact, there are products where most people shop online before hitting the stores.

Cell phones are one of these clicks-to-bricks products.

Online shopping and research has reached a critical mass where we can use it to sample overall consumer demand and future purchasing activity for highly-considered purchases, such as cars, travel and, of course, wireless devices. Compete’s Wireless Practice has developed specific insights into how consumers use the Internet to research and purchase wireless devices, which models are receiving the highest consideration and why.

• Over 5 million shoppers conduct detailed online handset research each month

• The Internet is the most consistently used research channel and is more trusted than any source besides family and friends

• The most effective cell phone makers convert shoppers to buyers at twice the rate of the least effective ones

On October 26th, Compete is hosting a webinar to share its insights on how the Internet has changed the way consumers shop for mobile phones and why that should make the wireless industry very happy…

If you would like to listen in follow this link and register – it’s FREE!