Ad Position Planning Considerations On Pay Per Click Search Engines
Running a pay-per-click campaign across multiple search engines offers some interesting strategic decisions when regarding ad placement. Where to rank in a bid landscape is evidently more complex than simply ranking as high as possible.
Debates remain on the subject of which positions drive the best traffic. By carrying out some bid rank analysis on your conversions one can analyse correlations between the two, spotting trends that appear where more conversions occur at one position over another.
Evident to us however, is the governing ad structure of the search engines themselves. Whilst Google adwords display 10 sponsored listings per page, the Overture network of search engines can display anything from 5 through to 10 listings. Therefore vying for position 6 would mean that your ad is not seen within the first page of results on some search pages. Thus, dependant on CPC’s, ranking in position 1–5, on an overture partnered site, may well be beneficial to your campaign.
Further within that 1-5 range lie more strategic possibilities, such as appearing twice on the one page, or by gaining unabbreviated ads lying within the top 3 rankings.
The top 3, currently green shaded, listings on MSN provide the longest ad text, plus by ranking within those top 3 you ensure your ad also appears again at the bottom of the page. Assuming the CPC’s for the rankings are budget favourable these positions may well be worth bidding for.
But what if these high positions are not within budget limits? Deciding exactly where to rank beyond position 5 or 6 may seem ineffective or futile. In return however, understanding the use of different screen resolutions can prove significant.
Using the same thought process as a web designer the screen resolution of a users’ monitor will govern how much of the web page they will see. With a resolution of 1280x768, on a Google search, a user is only able to see 6-7 ads in total. As opposed to a resolution of 1280x1024 where the user can see all 9–10 sponsored ads.
Therefore positioning ads accordingly will ensure ad visibility on both screen resolutions.
Evidently the research of placement policies within search engines is advantageous to the pay-per–click marketer. Adjustment of bid positions combined with screen resolution consideration can greatly increase the online visibility of paid listings.
Debates remain on the subject of which positions drive the best traffic. By carrying out some bid rank analysis on your conversions one can analyse correlations between the two, spotting trends that appear where more conversions occur at one position over another.
Evident to us however, is the governing ad structure of the search engines themselves. Whilst Google adwords display 10 sponsored listings per page, the Overture network of search engines can display anything from 5 through to 10 listings. Therefore vying for position 6 would mean that your ad is not seen within the first page of results on some search pages. Thus, dependant on CPC’s, ranking in position 1–5, on an overture partnered site, may well be beneficial to your campaign.
Further within that 1-5 range lie more strategic possibilities, such as appearing twice on the one page, or by gaining unabbreviated ads lying within the top 3 rankings.
The top 3, currently green shaded, listings on MSN provide the longest ad text, plus by ranking within those top 3 you ensure your ad also appears again at the bottom of the page. Assuming the CPC’s for the rankings are budget favourable these positions may well be worth bidding for.
But what if these high positions are not within budget limits? Deciding exactly where to rank beyond position 5 or 6 may seem ineffective or futile. In return however, understanding the use of different screen resolutions can prove significant.
Using the same thought process as a web designer the screen resolution of a users’ monitor will govern how much of the web page they will see. With a resolution of 1280x768, on a Google search, a user is only able to see 6-7 ads in total. As opposed to a resolution of 1280x1024 where the user can see all 9–10 sponsored ads.
Therefore positioning ads accordingly will ensure ad visibility on both screen resolutions.
Evidently the research of placement policies within search engines is advantageous to the pay-per–click marketer. Adjustment of bid positions combined with screen resolution consideration can greatly increase the online visibility of paid listings.
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