putting price in your advertisement

[MWpro]

On Google Adwords, what does everyone feel about putting the price right there in the ad? Like at the end: "Only $50.00"

The idea is that you tell them the price up front and if they will not pay that amount, they will not click, saving you money on adwords. This view is in opposition to the idea of making a really appealing ad and drawing as many people to your site as possible.

I put the price in my ad and have received less clicks, but the clicks I do receive seem to have a great chance of conversion.

If one follows this method, do you think he would be missing out on those extra clicks? Or do you think it is more beneficial to have it specifically targeted and to pay for less traffic?

[vincevincevince]

If you aren't careful you will start a price war - so really - put prices only where your competitors are already doing so and you are cheaper. If not then your competitors will add theirs within a week and if they are cheaper you will be sunk.

[MWpro]

For my service niche, I am cheaper than my competitors. They are established and I am up-and-coming, and I doubt they will lower their price just to squash new competition.

For my other product, I have no competition, it is a completely original product.

So I am not concerned about this "price war" theory, but more about getting sales.

Any other input?

[xurxo]

MWpro this is an excellent question. Putting price in your ads can serve as an excellent filter to eliminate unwanted tire-kicking traffic so that you improve your conversion rates.

POTENTIAL RISK OF THIS STRATEGY
The problem with this is that if it works too well, meaning that you are getting a lot of qualified traffic that's more inclined to make a purchase but have a low CTR because you scare off a lot of people not willing to pay your price, then Google will over time penalize you with a lower quality score.

KEEP AN EYE ON YOUR CTR
Google doesn't reward you with a better quality score because your conversion rate is higher, but will reward you if your CTR is higher. So this strategy in extreme cases where you're getting a lot of impressions and proportionately low clicks can end up hurting your QS and force you to pay more per click.

COVER YOUR BASES AND TEST
You'll want to experiment with this strategy and make sure you already eliminate a much untargeted traffic as possible through the use of negative keywords and match types.

You can try split testing 2 ads - one with pricing and one without to measure what happens in terms of CTR and conversions - just make sure to rotate them evenly so you get a clear picture.

[Freddy81]

I always put price in my ads. It significantly raised up the conversion, but there is a small drawback: less CTR.

[semsh]

Very interesting topic!
I have experience in dynamic campaigns where the ads contain the price. But taking this to the next level - taking the entire inventory and creating automated dynamic PPC campaigns.
Every product gets a unique ad (or more for a/b testing) which incl product data and price on it. Of course the landing page is conneced directly to the ad so when the user search for the specific product the result is very focused ad with relevant data - and the landing page is the product landing page.
This is IDEAL for retailers SEM campaigns and the bonus of this is high Quality Score, High CTR with low CPC (less competitive) -> High ROI.
So the way I see it, the price is good direction but only one step. In order to get the best results there is a need to create dynamic campaigns altogether. If you have many items in your catalog you need technology to automate it...