We're running a small handful of "test" ads for one of our
customers. One such product is a Workplace ***ual Harassment video
training package. It's a fairly high-traffic segment with about
7,000 impressions per day on our keywords. On one of our ads we're
getting a CTR of 5.2% even though we're bidding quite low for the
competition and "suggested" PPC by Google's Sandbox (the tool, not
the "effect").

We're driving traffic and have tried a number of different
conversion methods on the site but we are getting nowhere. We are
impressed with every area of the "campaign" but conversion -- which
is what really counts.

If you're so inclined, Google the keyphrase "***ual harassment" and
click on the FoleyServices ad. We rotate two different ads, each of
which go to a different page. The ad that includes the price (which
is less-than 24 hours old) goes right to the buy page, the other
(high CTR) ad goes to an info page which then leads to the buy page
(or so we hope) to avoid "sticker shock" before getting the info.
Obviously this isn't working as we've had THOUSANDS of clickthrus
without a SINGLE purchase -- talk about bad conversion.

Are we too verbose? Too chaotic? Not specific enough?

This isn't the only ad with high CTR that is underperforming on
conversion, but it's the worst. So we may be going about the
conversion process all wrong. It could be a tiny little bit of info
that puts us over the hump, but I'm beginning to exhaust reasons
here.

Thanks in advance.



Brendan

Hi Brendan,

If I understood properly, people come to your shop following an ad of
yours, look what you have to offer and leave your shop.
If so, I would see 3 problems:
- either your visitors are searching for something else and your ad
shows for wrong keywords. they wanted to come and see and not buy
anything;
- or you have a bad page of your product and people get discouraged;
- or your ads say too much (they are simply too good).

cheers,

wlodi

My first reaction was "holy ****" that is expensive!

If your product really is worth $349 then this is not conveyed by your
advertisement.

Drop the price to $25 and see if sales pick up.
"wlodi" <mwlodarski@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1110355052.867961.327230@o13g2000cwo.googlegr oups.com...
> Hi Brendan,
>
> If I understood properly, people come to your shop following an ad of
> yours, look what you have to offer and leave your shop.
> If so, I would see 3 problems:
> - either your visitors are searching for something else and your ad
> shows for wrong keywords. they wanted to come and see and not buy
> anything;
> - or you have a bad page of your product and people get discouraged;
> - or your ads say too much (they are simply too good).
>
> cheers,
>
> wlodi
>

On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 22:05:31 GMT, The Horta <horta@janus6.org> wrote:

>Are we too verbose? Too chaotic? Not specific enough?

It might help to post the URLs of the pages the ads go to, so we can
see for ourselves without clicking on a Google Ad and costing your
client money!

Listing the ads text as well would be a good idea also.

David
--
Free Search Engine Optimization Tutorial
http://www.seo-gold.com/tutorial/

SEO Dave <seodave@search-engine-optimization-services.co.uk>
wrote in news:6gvt2153smlco43uhlmr23vehf58n5dj9o@4ax.com:
> It might help to post the URLs of the pages the ads go to, so
> we can see for ourselves without clicking on a Google Ad and
> costing your client money!
>
> Listing the ads text as well would be a good idea also.

This is the higher-performing AW ad with a CTR of ~4% on ~8,000
impressions per day:
-----
***ual Harassment at Work
Covers Every Aspect from A-to-Z
Supervisor and Employee Training!
www.FoleyServices.com
-----
This ad links to this "pre-sell" page:
http://www.foleyservices.com/***ual_harassment.cfm



This one is, naturally, lower-performing, but is still above 1%
even though we try to "pre-shock" people with the price:
-----
***ual Harassment Course
Video Training Package - Only $349
Sample Video - 30 Day Money-Back
www.FoleyServices.com
-----
This ad links right to the "action" buy page because we've
already dispensed with the sticker shock:
http://www.foleyservices.com/itemInfo.cfm?itemID=38

Both ads are in the rotation. We'd hoped that the second ad
would better qualify people, and it's only been a couple of
days, but we're not seeing any conversion yet.

Thanks again for the help.



Brendan

"Colin Wilson" <siegrunen@hotmail.com> wrote in
news:422eccfc@clear.net.nz:

> My first reaction was "holy ****" that is expensive!
>
> If your product really is worth $349 then this is not conveyed
> by your advertisement.

Price-wise it's in the middle of the pack. There are just as many
more expensive options as there are less expensive ones. We are
seriously considering a reduction below $300, as there are cheaper
alternatives in the $250-300 price range that we are competing
with. I'm trying to word the sell page to differentiate the
benefits of our package over the "modulized" ones put out by video
training companies. Our client's package comes from their years of
experience in managing various federal and state-regulated
compliance programs, not just something put together by a "jack-of-
all-trades" training company that puts out ***ual Harassment
"Training" one day and Pet Grooming the next.

I'd like to exhaust any alternatives we're overlooking before I go
back and recommend a price drop to be more competitive.

However, we'd naturally prefer to sell 500 copies at $200 then zero
or a handful at nearly twice the price.

Thanks for your input. I really appreciate it.


Brendan

On Tue, 08 Mar 2005 22:05:31 +0000, The Horta wrote:

> We're running a small handful of "test" ads for one of our
> customers. One such product is a Workplace ***ual Harassment video
> training package. It's a fairly high-traffic segment with about
> 7,000 impressions per day on our keywords. On one of our ads we're
> getting a CTR of 5.2% even though we're bidding quite low for the
> competition and "suggested" PPC by Google's Sandbox (the tool, not
> the "effect").
>
> We're driving traffic and have tried a number of different
> conversion methods on the site but we are getting nowhere. We are
> impressed with every area of the "campaign" but conversion -- which
> is what really counts.

I would imagine that the term "***ual harassment" has many connotations
besides a workplace scenario, which is reflected in your high CTR and low
conversion. Try bidding under longer keywords i.e. "workplace ***ual
harassment"; "training ***ual harassment" etc. They often have low CTR but
high conversion.

regards

- n

Niel Drummond <nntp@cyan-unlinkthis-escent.co.uk> wrote in
newsan.2005.03.12.21.35.48.803040@cyan-unlinkthis-escent.co.uk:

> I would imagine that the term "***ual harassment" has many
> connotations besides a workplace scenario, which is reflected
> in your high CTR and low conversion. Try bidding under longer
> keywords i.e. "workplace ***ual harassment"; "training ***ual
> harassment" etc. They often have low CTR but high conversion.


We are, naturally, using the whole gamut of related keywords and
phrases, including those you stated. We get even higher CTR on the
more specific KWs, and one of our ads even has the product price in
it, but we're still getting no joy at all.

Any thoughts on the page(s) or price? I think our conversion is so
low because we're simply not compelling people to choose our
product over the others out there.



Brendan