Business Impact Article - Posted 6/3/2009
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B2B Vertical Search—Enabling Information Discovery and Decision Making for an Industry Community
Platts, a division of McGraw-Hill, is a subscription-driven site that provides real-time news, pricing, analytical services, and conferences to help these markets operate with transparency and efficiency. Through search, Platts connects traders and risk managers, planners and analysts, and energy executives to its core assets—prices, companies, market information, assets, people, and regulations. In polling its users, Platts learned that ease of searching for information is one of the most important attributes of its Web site. As part of a digital transformation strategy, Platts set out to develop a better search experience for energy professionals. Since implementing its FAST ESP search solution in 2007, Platts has seen growth in registrations, a 50 percent increase in trial requests, and revenue is up 40 percent year over year.
Background and Trends
Vertical search is growing. Outsell is projecting a 9 percent CAGR for ad revenue on vertical search through 2010. Two drivers of vertical search adoption are user frustration with open Web search and better targeting opportunity for advertisers.
On average, users spend seven hours per week just gathering information before they are able to do work. Several factors contribute to this inefficiency including lack of budget and support, and information being hard to find or validate. Vertical search provides a stronger value proposition for the end user because it is fine tuned for the audience. Irrelevant or ambiguous information is excluded. Vertical search also provides a better value proposition for advertisers. With vertical search, the audience community is more focused.
Challenge
In polling its users, Platts learned that ease of searching for information is one of the most important attributes of its Web site. As part of a digital transformation strategy, Platts set out to develop a better search experience for energy professionals.
The volatility and increasing globalization of the energy market has resulted in entry of new players. This means Platts must serve experienced energy communities, as well as people who are not as familiar with the energy sector. Through search, Platts connects traders and risk managers, planners and analysts, and energy executives to its core assets—prices, companies, market information, assets, people, and regulations.
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Solution and Benefits
Platts’ goals were to drive better customer satisfaction and increase revenue (see Figure 1).
Platts is a subscription-driven site. The key metrics that it tracks towards its revenue goals are registrations and trial requests. Since implementing its search solution in 2007, Platts saw growth in registrations and a 50 percent increase in trial requests. In that same period, revenue is up 40 percent year over year.
Key search features that Platts uses include:
- Dynamic, drill-down navigation
- Automated extraction of entities (e.g., people, company names) from content
- Integration of external Web content
- Featured related articles—both in and out of a user’s subscription
Key Takeaways
- Vertical search should be integrated with other products and services, not stand alone.
- Vertical search providers are employing both advertising models and subscription models. Search can play a role in driving metrics for both models.
- To be most effective, vertical search should combine all the sources of information that are most relevant to its community—such as information from other business units, external Web content, user-generated content, and multimedia content.
- Ability to control and tune the search experience is a valuable tool for vertical search providers because they can tailor the experience to the unique needs of the community.
For more information about FAST, please visit:
www.microsoft.com/enterprisesearch
