Understanding how relevance affects PPC
Monday, July 30th, 2007;
-- Greg Howlett |
MarketingExperiments.com has just published a new research brief that discusses how the relevance of the ad displayed impacts the click through rate and conversion rate.
In two case studies, Marketing Experiments showed important the ad text is to both the click through rate and conversion rate. In one study that tested ads for Encyclopedia Brittannica, ad titles that contained both “Encylopedia” and “Brittannica” converted 2.5 times better than ad titles that contained only “Brittannica. ” It is important to understand that 90% of the tested traffic saw the ads after searching for a phrase that contained both terms.
This study quantified something that any sophisticated PPC advertiser probably already knows–you should try to match your ad titles as closely as possible to the search terms that you are buying. Be as specific as you can, using brand names if possible.
The second study involved an online newspaper and compared relevance between directly related keywords such as “online newspaper” to indirectly related keywords such as “Iraq.” Using indirectly related keywords generated traffic but with a much lower click through rate and conversion rate.
Of course, this study highlights something else that is very important. Traffic is not the key metric of most websites–but profitable traffic is. Only when monitoring the customer acqusition costs and customer values can you decide whether any keyword bidding (directly or indirectly related) makes sense. it is my guess that there are few industries where you can profitably bid on indirectly related keywords.
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July 30th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
[…] the interesting part: (Pilgrim’s take) In one study that tested ads for Encyclopedia Brittannica, ad titles that contained both […]
July 30th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
When possible, you should always try to set up a conversion page for your webpage. Google offers this feature to go with the adwords account. It’s a great way to measure customer value. We (www.corporatesearchoptimization.com) set up conversion pages for all our clients.
July 30th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
This is a great piece of information. The relevance of your ad is hugely important for running a successful PPC campaign because it does in fact have a direct impact on both the click-thru and conversion rate. The importance of ad text is often overlooked but superior ad text not only attracts more clicks, but it also brings more targeted traffic to your site. Targeted traffic is the key to achieving the lowest possible overall cost per conversion for your business.
July 31st, 2007 at 6:13 am
I heard something similar from an Adwords user, they were adding the search term into the PPC ad to increase clicks.
July 31st, 2007 at 10:49 am
absoluty, the ads relevance play great role on ppc payment.
August 3rd, 2007 at 12:27 pm
I am also putting higher bids on more related keywords.
August 10th, 2007 at 12:58 am
What you just said in this blog post is probably the most under used, under valued, and under estimated strategy in e-commerce.
October 22nd, 2007 at 11:54 am
[…] Place Keywords in Your Ad Copy. This is the obvious one! Having your keywords within the headline and/or the body of the ad will increase click-through rates. Doing this will also further your efforts to increase your Quality Score in Google and amplify your overall relevancy. […]
March 10th, 2008 at 2:08 am
[…] Place Keywords in Your Ad Copy. This is the obvious one! Having your keywords within the headline and/or the body of the ad will increase click-through rates. Doing this will also further your efforts to increase your Quality Score in Google and amplify your overall relevancy. […]