Corporate Bigwigs Bet on Branding Ads
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Written By Reprise Media | March 24, 2005 | Share This
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Call it search advertising that’s not out to sell you anything. More and more major corporations are hedging their bets on search ads that aren’t aimed at driving an immediate sale.
Sometimes it’s done in the name of branding, other times it’s a way to woo busy executives with (hopefully) valuable information they can use to […]
Call it search advertising that’s not out to sell you anything. More and more major corporations are hedging their bets on search ads that aren’t aimed at driving an immediate sale.
Sometimes it’s done in the name of branding, other times it’s a way to woo busy executives with (hopefully) valuable information they can use to run their everyday operations, with an eye on a long-term sale.
In a market that’s growth is slowing down, the B2B vertical in particular has remained a bright spot, and this trend is proof positive. Tim Armstrong, VP of Ad Sales at Google, notes “a significant sea change” in the level of businesses’ interest in using search ads to reach out to other businesses.
Read the rest of the story in this article on WSJ.com, called Your Ad Here, 10 Words Max (please note: registration required).
Branding ads can deliver respectable results, even when no direct sale is involved. Unlike commerce-driven ads, however, the data may be a little harder to get a handle on. How do you measure the impact of your messaging?
A few points to keep in mind:
- Where is the user going?: Make sure you have a clear destination of where you’d like the user to wind up, with landing pages relevant to the keyword and creative messaging.
- What will they find when they get there?: Deep, high-quality content is key to creating consumer value and loyalty, whether it’s a technical white paper, case study, or business advice. Creative messaging should use calls to action such as “read”, “discover”, “learn more about”, etc.
- How are you tracking?: Even though the amount of leads rolling in will not likely be as high as a traditional product-oriented ad, you shouldn’t let tracking fall by the wayside. Determine your target metrics early on and keep in mind that a corporate sale might involve a much lengthier conversion cycle from user click to conversion than is typical of most search ads.
Topics: Advertising: Contextual, Advertising: Distribution, SEM: Ad Creative, SEM: Firms, SEM: Keyword Generation, SEM: Paid Search |