BlogWorks: Forget focus groups

« Making room for the next generation | Main | Tag, we're it »

December 18, 2006

Forget focus groups

Test your marketing slogans with Pay-Per-Click advertising

Pay-Per-Click advertising is an extremely efficient and highly customizable way to directly target potential customers. Ads are triggered by certain keywords and the advertiser pays only if a customer clicks on the ad.

Both Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing let advertisers assign numerous ad variations to the same set of keywords. These ads can be displayed in rotation and it quickly becomes clear which ads generate the highest clickthrough rate. As a result, the low performing ads can be eliminated and successful ads can be refined through the introduction and rotation of subtle variations. This method will lead to the most effective tagline and ad text for the Pay-Per-Click advertising campaign.

But how many marketing professionals are aware that they can use Google’s and Yahoo’s rotating ad features to quickly and efficiently test different taglines, ad texts and incentives for their clients’ entire marketing campaigns? In my opinion, search engine users are the best focus group that marketing professionals can find in an instant, because they represent a random sample of potentially interested consumers and they are completely unaware that they are part of a test group.

The clickthrough rate for the ad variations will indicate which ad message resonates most with the public. The most successful tagline/text on Google or Yahoo! could then also be incorporated into print campaigns, press releases, etc.

I highly recommend that agencies test their clients’ potential taglines and ad texts through Pay-Per-Click advertising — pending client approval, of course — before they finalize all other forms of planned marketing. Needless to say, the test ads should direct users to a meaningful landing page on the clients’ web sites.

Posted by staff at December 18, 2006 05:05 PM