For Industrial products, does site design affect adwords conversion rates? If a website has a lot of graphics , animation due to which it loads slowly, does it result in poor conversion rates?
caran1, I thought this was a great topic, and I'm still hoping that others will weigh in with their own experience.
I'd like to first answer in a very general way, speaking from my own personal experience, and wearing my 'consumer hat', and not my 'AdWords Employee hat'. Then I'll add some conjecture about your market.
For me, the quality of a site is extremely important. If I get a long flash intro, I'm simply gone. I don't want to do business with someone who wastes my time.
I am not a fan of lots of animation or graphics either. If I go to a site where there is more than one or two things moving, I'm probably gone.
If I get to the site, and it looks unprofessional, I'm gone. I don't want to trust my credit card to an unprofessional organization.
If the order pages are not secure, I'm gone.
If, on a site, I can't quickly find what I've already searched on, I may very well be gone. If the offer is really good, though, and the site is professional, I may endure painful navigation to get to the good deal. Or I may not.
Those are just a few examples. But IMO, the quality, the look and feel, the ease of navigation, the perceived trustworthiness of the site, etc are extremely important. In fact, they're deal breakers (or deal-makers) for me.
OK, now I'll venturing into some 'informed conjecture':
As someone who worked with product designers, mechanical engineers, prototypers, manufacturers - and their clients - for 10+ years, my take on the Industrial Products market is that those guys and gals don't fool around. My guess is that a lot of graphics and animation will leave them unimpressed. It's what you can deliver, quickly and correctly, that matters.
Just my $0.02, based on a previous lifetime as an Industrial Designer.
AWA
The ad offer and keywords should flow into the landing page as if it were a link on your website that described the article/page the visitor is about to read.
By combining the elements of ads and landing pages to work together, you'll give your visitors a better experience (and what they're looking for, saving you $$ on PPC), which should increase your conversion rates.
