PPC Ad Factors: Which Ones Are Most Important?

Thu, Nov 5, 2009

Conversion Rates, Traffic

   Written by: Susan Tatum

PPC Ad Factors: Which Ones Are Most Important?
Do some aspects of a pay-per-click ad drive more clicks than others?
A recent Business-to-Business Search survey from Enquiro Research shows that yes, some parts of a pay per click ad are more “important” than others for generating clicks from technical buyers. I think it’s more accurate to say that certain aspects of your ad come into play before the others.
We’re talking about business technology marketing here, but this information holds true for any kind of pay per click advertiser.
The first factor is ranking. This is the order in which pay per click ads are listed. It determines whether or not your ad gets seen and by how many people. Although it isn’t necessary to be in the number one spot, you’ll get much better response by being ranked in the top six. If you don’t achieve ranking on the first page (generally 8 to 10 ads), far fewer people will see your ad so none of the other factors matter.
The second factor is relevance. Does the ad provide what the searcher is looking for? If I’m researching a learning management system for my company and you’re marketing an online university, you’re not really relevant to me. I’m not going to click on your ad no matter how great your headline is. (But, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing since I’m not in the market for your product anyway.)
Next in line are the specific parts of your ad. First is the headline. Headlines on Google Adwords ads are in larger, blue, underlined type and any words in the headline that match a keyword used by the searcher will be bold. Searchers tend to scan the headlines looking for words that exactly match what they’re looking for.
If the headline passes the searcher’s relevance test, he’ll pay attention to the two lines of description. And if he’s still interested, then he’ll look at the display URL – which is generally the company or product name.
Some searchers are looking for specific brands, and in these cases the ad’s display URL takes on more importance than the ad text itself. Of course, this makes a difference only if your brand is well-known. Most new and smaller pay per click advertisers don’t have this luxury.
To summarize, here’re the factors in order of “importance”.
1.Ranking (or placement)
2.Relevance
3.Headline
4.Body text
5.Display URL
I emphasize the word “importance” because really all of these factors are important and well worth testing. Fortunately, that’s easy to do.
Technorati Tags: ppc, pay per click, search, advertising

This article was first published April 10, 2008 on the Tatum Marketing blog

Do some aspects of a pay-per-click ad drive more clicks than others?

A recent Business-to-Business Search survey from Enquiro Research shows that yes, some parts of a pay per click ad are more “important” than others for generating clicks from technical buyers. I think it’s more accurate to say that certain aspects of your ad come into play before the others.

We’re talking about business technology marketing here, but this information holds true for any kind of pay per click advertiser.

The first factor is ranking. This is the order in which pay per click ads are listed. It determines whether or not your ad gets seen and by how many people. Although it isn’t necessary to be in the number one spot, you’ll get much better response by being ranked in the top six. If you don’t achieve ranking on the first page (generally 8 to 10 ads), far fewer people will see your ad so none of the other factors matter.

The second factor is relevance. Does the ad provide what the searcher is looking for? If I’m researching a learning management system for my company and you’re marketing an online university, you’re not really relevant to me. I’m not going to click on your ad no matter how great your headline is. (But, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing since I’m not in the market for your product anyway.)

Next in line are the specific parts of your ad. First is the headline. Headlines on Google Adwords ads are in larger, blue, underlined type and any words in the headline that match a keyword used by the searcher will be bold. Searchers tend to scan the headlines looking for words that exactly match what they’re looking for.

If the headline passes the searcher’s relevance test, he’ll pay attention to the two lines of description. And if he’s still interested, then he’ll look at the display URL – which is generally the company or product name.

Some searchers are looking for specific brands, and in these cases the ad’s display URL takes on more importance than the ad text itself. Of course, this makes a difference only if your brand is well-known. Most new and smaller pay per click advertisers don’t have this luxury.

To summarize, here’re the factors in order of “importance”.

  1. Ranking (or placement)
  2. Relevance
  3. Headline
  4. Body text
  5. Display URL

I emphasize the word “importance” because really all of these factors are important and well worth testing. Fortunately, that’s easy to do.

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