It seems like there are a lot of different research studies being released that look at some piece of ecommerce or online marketing. It’s good to put a scientific approach to examining how and why people make purchases in order to better serve those customers.

The latest study to cross my desk was conducted by Performics and comScore Networks. This study looks at how consumers use search engines in the process of making online purchases. The findings suggest there is an opportunity for marketers to attract and engage searchers throughout the buying cycle, and not only with their own branded keywords but generic keyword searches.

Called Search Before the Purchase, the study used a proprietary panel of 1.5 million US Internet users who made a purchase at one of 30 web sites during the month of September, 2004. The survey tracked search activity - both searches and clicks - of the buyers for 12 weeks preceding the purchase.

The study, which analyzes pre-purchase search activity across four categories (Apparel, Computer Hardware, Sports and Fitness, and Travel), showed that almost 50 percent of all online shoppers conducted related research at a search engine before making an online purchase. What is also outlined in the study is the frequency of searches and how close there are in relation to the actual purchase. All of this varies by category.

The study also looks at the types of keyword searches that are performed prior to making a purchase. The results show that buyers clearly favor generic terms early in the buying cycle. Brand-specific searches accounted for only 18.1 to 28.5 percent of all searches those buyers conducted, depending on the respective purchase categories.

For many of you this new data will just confirm what you already know or at least suspected. For others it might provide the hard data to convince you to tweak the way you do business.

Check out the study, then start blogging and let me know if this particular study or any of the other pieces of research that come out actually impact the way you do business or if you simply ignore them.