• The team at Inside AdWords had an intriguing post this week. There’s been some research done lately on how much conversion rates vary with ad position. The results may surprise you.
  • Want to optimize your PPC landing page, but aren’t exactly sure where you should begin? Search Engine Watch has a handy list of seven optimization tips to help increase conversions, which includes such great suggestions as, “Don’t be loud.”
  • It’s been proven that searches in MSN/Bing are leaning towards more bargain deals over high prices luxury items. In this post Libby Thomas gives some pointers on increasing your click-through rates just by putting prices or bargain deals in your ad text. She says you can also use ‘cheap’, ‘inexpensive’, etc in your keyword list if that represents your products.
  • Amanda from Portent Interactive has a good post on drawing emotion to your target audience to get them to make purchases online. She talks about writing ads and advertising messages as if you were writing a greeting card. She also mentions you can’t reach the entire online population so narrow down your audience so you can write specific, targeted messages just for them.
  • Galen DeYoung, over at Search Engine Land posted Tips for Turning Unintended Traffic Into Ambassadors. DeYoung does not mean unqualified traffic, rather, he discusses how you can identify streams of related traffic, identify what you can you do to lower the bounce rate and then how to engage these visitors as potential ambassadors of your product or service.
  • Marketing Pilgrim posted a study that claims Smaller Ads Work Better Online. The study was release by the advertising research firm Dynamic Logic says that if the creative quality of the ad is the same then the size of the ad can have significant influence. In the test, white, simple Flash ads performed the worst.
  • Hey. If you’re new to PPC advertising, there’s fantastic news: not everyone else is! This means you get to learn from their mistakes and try not to make the same. Don’t be the kid who licks the light pole on a 6 degree day; let someone else do it first.
  • Does no mean no? Maybe not. Nathan Hangen describes what a “no” from your prospective customers might really mean, and how to get past it to your sale.