2 replies to this topic

[donaldcroswell]

Hi all
I have an Adwords Campaign that puts me in the number one or number two spot for most of my keywords.
Now that I have been spidered by Google I am usually in the top ten for my search terms.
My question is, how many people skip the paid listings and go right to number three or four because they think they are more relevant? I am assuming that we know that they are paid, but does the 'average joe or jane' who uses the engine, take the time to read that the top two listings are paid advertisements?
Which would get more clicks? number one paid listing or number three (really number one) search listing?

This site is sooooo sticky!

Thanks
Don

[Jill]

Hi Don,

I've moved this to the pay-per-click category.

You might want to take a look at this thread which is relevant to your question.



Jill

[Haystack]

Thanks for moving the thread, Jill.

Don, you face a common question of businesses interested in maximizing their traffic while managing their ad budgets. My general assumption (and it sounds like your's as well) is to turn off ads on terms once your natural search engine traffic is highly ranked.

This is a tough, and hard to quantify decision. Here are a few things to consider:

1. Use a conversion analysis program that allows you to track your sales/leads based on both term and campaign. If you're continuing to turn a positive ROI on business through your PPC ads you should probably keep them running.

2. How many businesses are advertising on those terms? Would you feel comfortable letting an additional competitor frame an ad around your natural search results? Assuming #1 is working, probably not.

That's the basic process I go through with my own site and my client's web sites. To ad one more variable into the mix, it's generally easier to pause/delete an Adwords campaign vs. an Overture campaign based on how the ads are served. Keep that in mind as well.