When Times Get Tough, Google Hits The Bottle
Dec 10
On Monday the Google Adwords blog announced that they would permit Adwords advertisements that promoted hard liquor to the U.S. This is a follow up to their decision in the fall to permit beer ads.
“This fall, we changed our policy around beer, for the first time allowing advertisements of its sale in the U.S. via AdWords. And starting today, in response to advertiser feedback we’ve received over the years, we’ll permit the advertisement of hard alcohol and liqueurs that target the U.S.”
Or maybe it has something to do with the economy…
Anyway, I thought it would be fun to see what our local (now quasi-local) brewery Anheuser Busch was doing with PPC. I ran a couple searches on “beer” and “mmm beer.” I was disappointed to see that no one is bidding on “mmm beer” because that would be my search of choice.
Then I began to wonder if Bud Light has clickability, not just drinkability. I searched “light beer” and this is what I saw:
My analysis is that this particular ad doesn’t have much clickability. Thoughts?
Dec 10 at 18:39
Dear Mystery Thinkubator Writer:
How would you propose that Bud Light increase the “clickability” of this ad? I think it’s pretty good, given the context.
Julie
Dec 11 at 14:02
Hi Julie. Thanks for your comments. I think there are probably a few PPC best practices that could be used to enhance the clickability of the ad and I think the ad copy could be written to be a bit more compelling too. I’m guessing this is one of several ads AB might be testing for this campaign, so there could be some other ads utilizing these strategies, but here are a couple things I think could be improved for this particular ad:
1) Include the keyword in the headline. If a user is searching for light beer, then a headline that includes the phrase “light beer” is probably going to have a higher CTR than one that is more vague, such as “great beer products.” Beer products could mean a lot of things — beer making supplies, beer gifts, beer merchandise, etc. But this user isn’t necessarily looking for those things so the ad may have low relevancy to their search. Using “light beer” in the headline will also make more of the headline bold, which also helps with clickability.
2) Utilize a call to action, or at least inform the user what they will get if they click on the ad. A user is making a very fast decision on whether or not to click an ad, so offering them the “why” is helpful. This ad just kind of says “We make beer products and we’re great!” And while I don’t disagree that AB makes some great beer products, I also don’t think that’s the most compelling message when it comes to PPC. Some questions a user might have — Should I click on the ad to buy beer? To join a social community of beer drinkers? To sign up for a promo? To learn more about drinkability? To watch commercials?
I think it would be useful to offer the user an answer in the ad copy. For example, even making a small tweak in ad copy to something along the lines of “learn why no other beer has drinkability like Bud Light” or “the difference is drinkability, find out what it means” provides more information and offers more of an incentive to click.
There are lots of things worth testing with this campaign (the beauty of PPC) but those are just some initial thoughts on ways I think this ad could be enhanced.
–Erin
Dec 12 at 10:18
Speaking of things Google is doing to generate more revenue, here’s a good list of what they’ve done in Q4 alone: http://searchengineland.com/google-expands-adsense-for-domains-enough-already-15812.php