This article is guest posted by Ryan DSouza from Internet Marketing Strategy
Pay-Per-Click Marketing Is A Double-Edged Sword
Pay-per click marketing offers instant exposure, traffic and profit potential for one’s website business. It also provides up-to date analytical data which enables an advertiser to learn more about his/her customers, exploit new markets or opportunities and reduce costs by taking corrective action quickly and efficiently.
The flip side is also through. If the advertiser is not continuously split-testing ads, doing proper keyword research and creating meaningful relevant landing pages, he/she will not only lose a lot of money, but also credibility in his/her respective niche. This can be a frustrating ordeal, and is often the case with most new internet marketers.
PPC marketing should be an essential part of one’s internet marketing strategy for a number of reasons. It should be mainly used in combination with organic SEO, email marketing and ezine advertising to improve web visibility and establish brand.
In order to be successful at adwords, one has to understand the importance of relevancy. There should be a shared or meaningful connection between the targeted keyword, adcopy and landing page. They all have to tell the same story, with each element building upon the next. This improves overall CTR, which in turn positively affects quality score.
(CTR, also known as click-thru rate is an excellent measure of relevance. It is a major part of Google’s quality score. A lot of us know and understand that.)
Exploring Key Ways To Improve Your Adwords CTR
Certain CTR factors are obvious or more agreeable:-
Use keywords in the title, adcopy and destination URL, address a question/captivating call to action, state the product’s benefit and features and observe the content in the ad above you. No question there.
But, should your ad copy include or exclude product price?
That’s what i’d like to ask. Personally, i’ve experienced good results either way and i can easily argue both sides.
Including product price qualifies your visitors a little more. It acts as a weed barrier, if you will, eliminating or discouraging curiousity clicks. This provides for better targeting. The result may be a lower CTR, but a higher conversion rate. Then again, this also depends on whether your product is expensive, competitive or cheap. If it is lower than the competition, then expect high CTR and conversion rate. If it is expensive, expect low CTR and low conversion rate, unless your product has very strong brand recognition/loyalty or better product features than its competitors.
The flip side with including price is that some of the clicks you will be discouraging are from people with a low to moderate interest in your product. People who are not ready to commit as yet, but may convert depending on the quality of the sales letter.
Think of it this way. If i don’t have the opportunity to convey the product’s value to you either in the form of a sales presentation, letter, or demonstration, why would you be willing to buy based on price alone?
While, price inclusion effectively hedges or protects against wasted clicks, it also eliminates certain “prospect” clicks or clicks from individuals that are somewhat interested, but need more persuasion before fully committing.
These type of individuals are not “wasted” clicks, their simply “price-sensitive”. They need more assurance before buying.
Like i said earlier, there’s pros and cons to both. But, i would love to hear your take on it. Include or exclude price?
Ryan DSouza is a financial analyst, fiction writer, food critic and part-time internet marketer. He maintains a small blog where he freely discusses different internet marketing strategies and techniques for beginners. His current interests include blogging and mobile application development.
