snoopy1122 - 1:33 pm on Sep 12, 2011 (gmt 0)

As I said, you want to be different, differentiate yourself. You may be right that the most prominent (ad on top) may be most likely to be clicked. But that means your ad must be more prominent. Then again, if they are next to each other, the tactic may backfire. Readers may think WTH and not click on any or click the second one. The point is, be smarter than your competitor and you have a greater chance at winning.

Personally I think to beat the competition it is important to now how they operate, ie how good their ads are.

The message however is not or should not be in your domain but your ad.

The domain name *is* part of the ad, whether people use a good domain or a bad domain. If they use a bad domain they are wasting a line (or a part of a line).

Having an exact match domain results in a higher CTR in my limited experience. There is no rules about how things "should" be done, if one domain name performs better than another I'm going to use that domain name.

Not sure if that's true. I guess if you're Walmart or some other well-known brand it can influence click rate. But brownmenshoes.com?

Let me me ask you this; Have you tried it?

Yes, Ad 1 despite lower much CTR is the better producer with its much higher conversion rate, but not by that much.

So far it is significantly cheaper.

Your case is the exception because of the much higher conversion. I guess I'd go with Ad 1. But I'd also test more ads, combining the best elements of both into one and testing other variations. That's really the name of the game. You may get a 20% CTR but with a conversion rate of 10% which would be better. Even 7% conversion at 20% CTR would be better. FWIW, I hardly ever use price in the ad but if it works for you.

Have done a lot of testing, perhaps 100 different ads over the last couple of years. The two ads I am at now are the two best in terms of maximising CTR x conversion rate though obvious a big difference in cost per sale. I think I'm down to fairly incremental changes in terms of balancing CTR and conversion now, well until I can think up some new ideas.