I came across this adwords trick on the internet and was wondering if anybody has tried it?

http://www.shoemoney.com/2007/02/06/...through-rates/

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DRang3d
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Overseas Mortgages | Overseas Property |
U.K. Investment Property

I don't do very much PPC, but Jeremy's always good for a trick or two...no doubt if he says it, it works...That's what makes his blog so well read IMO.

Best;

Eric

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Eric Blackwell
Technologist, SEO Specialist and Consultant

Louisville Real Estate

Southern Indiana Search Engine Marketing Blog

Real Estate Industry Watch - Real Estate Industry News Blog

First of all, thats a 100% increase, not 200.
Second, 0.40% CTR is awful. On my campaigns a CTR less than 2% is disturbing.

I wouldn't be bragging if I was him.

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Lydia Taylor, Realtor & Broker

Augusta GA Real Estate | North Augusta SC Real Estate | Augusta GA Home Search

He was not bragging.. and he even set up a PPC ad to test it.

He was simply stating a fact, that one works over the other.

Keep in mind, you are doing real estate, I'm sure the ring tones market is different.

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If you're not remembered, you never existed.

If you can buy 500 clicks for $35, it's DEFINITELY NOT a competitive keyword. And if you are paying that with a 0.40 CTR... well, we can safely say it's not a difficult keyword.

I guess you just have to have some experience with AdWords to realize how poor that is.

I agree with your point, Brandon, that I can't make an apples-to-apples comparison with real estate keywords, but lets just say I'd love to be able to run a campaign that loose.

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Lydia Taylor, Realtor & Broker

Augusta GA Real Estate | North Augusta SC Real Estate | Augusta GA Home Search

Setting aside that the CPC costs mentioned are unrealistic for the RE market, the general concept is sound, but I wouldn't cal it a "trick".

Generally, Adwords QS for any particular query, and therefore the ad's position, CPC and CTR, will always be better when the user's specified keywords appear in the ad more than once, and even better if they are in the same sequence the user has entered them.

Therefore, if your keywords are variations of "mytown CA real estate", and the ad says:

Mytown CA Real Estate
Real Estate sale Mytown California,
Mytown CA Real Estate, Search MLS!

Then the majority of the user's entered keywords occur two-three times each in the ad, and the ad will probably get pretty good placement. Where they occur is probably less important than the number of times. Note the use of both CA and California in the ad at least one time each, so it won't matter how the user enters it in their query. "sale" and "search" and "MLS" also appear at least once each, since these are commonly used by consumers. "for" is just a noise word to Google, so it really doesn't add QS value, and is not necessary in the ad. You can see that by entering "for" in your query, and noting that it does not get bolded in the resulting ads. The more "hits" on individual words in the user's query and in the ad, the better position and lower CPC the ad will get. The user will also see the ad as very relevant since the matching search phrase words will be bolded when AdWords displays the ad.

This behavior is also why having communityname, home, homes or realestate in the display and/or landing page url is also advantageous, and why, when I don't have full control of the landing page url constructs in a P2A site for example, I will always include in the display url, the community name as an alias or 3rd level domain name that is 301 redirected to the community specific landing page for that ad. The landing page url is exactly the same as the display url, so AdWords editorial guidelines are met. This gives me at least one more occurrence of the community name in the ad, and perhaps allows for a few more and different words on the 3rd line of the ad, or to carry some of the words over from line 2 into line 3 for the longer community and state names.

For us, the difficulty arises, and more creativity is needed, when we have a long state name and/or long community name to cram into the ad. The AdWords 25 character first line limit and 35 character second and third line limits get to be very constraining, so this technique in constructing ads may not work in many cases.

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Ron Goodman, GRI, REALTOR®
Prudential Colorado Real Estate
Denver Colorado Real Estate and Homes for Sale,
AdWords PPC Consulting and Support for REALTORS®
Hobby: Goodman Family History and Genealogy