Adword creatives

how important is it to use keywords?

[clickthinker]

Hey...
We have a client who is looking to position itself for a set of terms, but doesn't want us to use those words in the Ad text.

How important is using the terms searched for in the Ad? Does it impact that much on CTR if one doesn't use the search terms?

Anyone had any experience with this?
Thanks.

[dmorison]

Hi,

Remember that keywords contained within the headline are displayed in bold, which will help catch attention.

Google advise is to use the keywords within the headline because they're interested in the maximum CTR (their $hort term view).

Your're interested in the maximum ROI (your long term view), which does not depend on the maximum CTR, unless your keyword is VERY specific.

[Rossie]

One of our clients is in a v. competitive sector based on brand name searches and we've found you definitely have to mention the brand name in the ad text to maximise Click Thrus & Conversion Rates.

Non-brand specific terms, though, have fared OK for other sites we've dealt with where we've not put the search term in the ad - though not generally as well as when we do put the search term in the ad. (eg 8% click thru with search term in ad compared to 5% click thru with search term not in ad).

It makes sense that when someone types in a particular search phrase they will be drawn to ads that match the exact phrase they are searching for - which I reckon is one of the fundamental principles of SEO anyway.

[hannamyluv]

You could probably get a decent CTR but the CTR will be better if the keywords are in the ad. As dmorison said, the appear in bold and are more likely to attract attention. We have see this again and again with our ads. Just don't do it at the cost of the appearance of the ad, for example, if your keyword is a misspelling or variation, use the correct term, not the misspelling.

It's even better if you can manage to squeeze the keyword in twice, once in the title and once in the copy. But you have to do that in just the right way or G will disapprove the ad as being repetative.

I have a contemporary who's boss insists that she not even put anything about the product in the ad, insisting that the weight of the company name will pull the customers. Needless to say, their ads are floundering and the program is failing.

[clickthinker]

THanks for the replies!

What we're going to do is run 2 ads in each ad group. One keyword rich, the other not and see what happens.