Marketing on the Web

Emotional and Rational Search engine ads

In my last posting I was discussing the basic features of an adwords ad
1. value proposition
2. Third party endorsement
3. calling to action
4. Special wording that might relate to consumer perceived thinking.

But missed out the important characterstic of search engine ad that is “Appealing”.
As we know appealing is a fundamental concept of any advertisement. Appealing techniques that apply to
traditional advertising mediums (call them legacy ) like TV, newspaper and radio
will go good with Search Engine advertisement too.
Appealing comes with two choices, either it can be Emotional or Rational.
But that choice is depended on the product type, that advertiser is intending to sell.

Rational Ads

Writing Rational ads that sells cognitive related products in other words products related to thinking , analyzing and
Calculation will give higher click through ratio (CTR) and better conversion rate.
Product which requires higher involvement of customer time, efforts can be sold easily by rational adwords ads.
For example, selling book about Internet marketing Secret or ads for outsourcing or fixed wing aircraft part retail store.

Emotional Ads

Adwords ads, that sells / promoting emotional products (example Jeans, Valentines Gift, Music or selling Britney Spears’s hair )
should have the blend of both emotional and entertaining appeal.

Please aware, entertaining ads might attract visitors who has no intention of buying by expense of google adwords click.
It is very hard to sell visitors who is
• Seeking fun or curious
• Some kind of social interaction like pen pal, online dating
• Looking to pass time like chatting, forum posting, reading news
• Escaping from boring work or job, Information overload
Such users are good for implanting the Brand name but can not be counted for direct response.

As per Hoffman’s Network Navigational theory of internet Advertisement!

Extrinsic Searchers, who has motive behind the search ( looking to buy a product, researching a online service or product)
traverse (browser) more than one organic search result page before clicking on any search engine adwords ads.

Intrinsic Searchers (who is looking for entertainment or lost in world wide web), doesn’t care about adwords ads or organic search results.
They simply click on any hyperlink whichever attracts their attention first.

Posted in Google Adwords, Internet Marketing, Online Consumer Behavior | No Comments »

Writing better Ads for Google Adwords

Why Click is so important to Google advertiser?

If you are advertising through Google Adwords or Yahoo sponsored Search, you know how hard to generate the click from searcher. Writing high appeal ad not only increases web site traffic, it also reduces the search engine advertisement cost. Google elevates the best clicking ads to top  position among other low clicking ads. This will generate more money to Google and more clicks to advertiser. Marketers will not be charged for this top positioning even though they are bidding less than the competitor.

Also, Google will disable the bad performing ads, which generate less than 2% CTR. The Click through Ratio (CTR) is calculated based on how many times your ad has been displayed (called impression) and number of times it received click from customer.

For example, your ad has been displayed for 2000 (impression) and received 2 click.
The CTR is 1% ([2/2000] * 100). Even though the conversion ratio of your ad might be promising but if it doesn’t meet minimum 2% of CTR then Google will simply disable without any warning. Yahoo also does the same on its Sponsored search listing.

So it is very important to keep an eye on your higher conversion ads to prevent being victimized by lower CTR.

Writing better ad that generate more clicks!

Unlike other advertisement formats such as Banner, Email marketing, pop-up ads, you can not use any graphics, colors, font styles or nudging flashy movies. The only medium to impress the searcher is Text. Indeed, that’s what the searchers are looking for. Writing text only ads might be restricting but in reality it saves lot of time for the advertisers. The advertiser doesn’t need to worry about impressive color combinations, choosing correct images or audios etc. That way! Search engine’s text only ads help advertisers to focus on core value of advertisement, customer appeal.

Personalized ads have more appealing power and conversion rate. Such ads will give impression to the searchers (customer), that specific ad has been published only for him. By visiting the recommended page or site through click, he can resolve his problem or can fulfill his seeking.

So the search engine placement (Adwords) ad should a have words or phrase that will imply all of those qualities above. It must be very simple and not technical.
Should standout from others ads as well as the organic search results recommended by Search Engines.

For example,

Typing the broad keyword “search Engine advertisement” on Google
(Feb 17 2007), brought me following paid listings

Which one is the best ad?

The most appealing Ad
Start from searcher motivation. What is the motivation behind of my search “Search Engine Advertisement”?

I want to know more about it?
Or looking for a best way to do it?
Or wanting to know who can do it?
Or want to know who is doing it?
Or looking where to do it?
Or seeking the best one to do it?

From the above paid listing, I preferred to click the ad “Yahoo! Search Marketing”.

1. Because it associates with well known brand name “Yahoo” so I can trust and expect the better quality.
2. Ad is connecting with my perceived knowledge about “Search engine advertisement”
keyword through “cost-per-click“. So it is informative.
3. It induces me an offer worth of $50 credit.
4. Calling me to give a try means I can walkaway if I don’t like it.
5. It has the convincing appeal, that site is dedicated to only for search marketing by displaying “searchmarketing.yahoo.com”

So this Yahoo search marketing ad has more appealing qualities.
• Endorsement by known brand Yahoo.
• Free Credit of $50 value proposition
• Calling for my action with trial with no string attachment.
• Also promising it will be more informative and fulfilling for my knowledge seeking.
• Also has special wording “cost-per-click” which increase my perceived knowledge about internet advertisement.
The keyword “Search Engine Advertisement” not very specific about buying anything rather it is more cognitive oriented looking for information. The ad3 and ad2 are very generic, looking for a buyer and are not interested in educating or informative. Not asking the searcher to interact with them either. Ad3 has unverified claim as “Industry leader” also asking visitor to spend $29.9

Posted in Google Adwords, Internet Marketing, Search Engine Advertisement | No Comments »

Internet Marketing and Web Log analyzer

Generating Sales Lead from Web site log

Marketing division integrated with internet technologies (E-marketing) allows firms and marketers to identify the potential sales leads from specific geographical area. One of the effective techniques is analyzing the corporate website Log.

By analyzing the visitor behavior on corporate website, such as keyword used to find the site on search engine, Visitors IP address, number of pages visited on each visit, type of contents on the visited pages and duration spend on specific page can reveal enormous details about each visitor need. This can be used as a parameter to identify the potential buyer.

There are lot of web log analyzing tools are available, the best one in the market is Google Analytics (free to use) and web Trends
Using Google Analytical tool, an internet marketing team can track

Visitor type

• (whether daily visitors, details about Visitor Recency , corporate employee or individual),
• Network Location (whether Comcast or microsoft)
• Referring web sites
• Top Content (Most visited pages)
• Depth of each visit (How many pages have been visited by a visitor)
• and many more..

Using these parameters, the marketing team can effectively prepare list of companies or individuals who might be interested on their services. Even can be used as a sales forecasting for coming years.
For example, assume Double Click the internet advertisement company looking to buy more business in West Coast. In order to find the list of interested companies, all they need is 12 months of web log history.

By analyzing the web logs of each visitor, such as IP address, network location, number of pages visited, contents on the visited pages will help preparing the potential customer list who might be interested on DoubleClick.com advertisement service.

Posted in Internet Marketing, Uncategorized | No Comments »