When it came to conversion rates,
the high point was a 7.8% rate at ad
position 7, while the lowest rate in
the Engine Ready sample-1.6%--
came in the third ad position. On
average, conversion rates were
better from fourth position down
than in the top three ad slots.
Lewis says those findings tend to
support the hypothesis that
searchers who click on ads lower
down in the PPC rankings are closer
to a buying decision than those
clicking on the first ad they see,
who are more intent on compiling
research for a purchase, including
general product information and
comparative data.
Lewis says the conversion disparity underlines the fact that marketers
need to be aware of the clues that search phrases provide about where
prospects are in the buying cycle. "I'm currently in the market for a
laptop, and as I'm doing research, I'll just type in 'notebook' and
click on the first listing to get started," he says. "I won't bother
to specify a model or brand. But as I learn more and get ready to buy, I'm
more likely to be drawn by an ad that mentions the HP 6120."
Marketers should thus be coordinating their ad creative and their
placement strategies to make sure that those ready-to-buy searchers are
seeing ads that appeal to their specific product interests, not simply
headlines that offer "Best deals on notebooks!" Those broad appeals are
more effective for searchers early in their research phase and thus might
work better in high ad positions.
One Engine Ready client operates in the debt consolidation industry,
Lewis says, but found that their ads converted particularly well at those
lower positions when the creative copy was split into messages about
specific attributes such as "debt consolidation" and "debt
settlement", linked to appropriately granular keyword campaigns.
For example, he says, that debt consolidation client saw conversion rates
of 21.7% with ads linked to "debt consolidation service" in ad positions
ranging from Number 6 to Number 9, and relatively high conversion rates of
10% in those same slots with "credit debt consolidation."
