Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
Therefore, the ad must be a gateway, a guidepost, a sign, or an enticement for the
searchers that directs them to your Web page, which is where the searchers get the
product or service that actually addresses their need. Therefore, crafting the adver-
tisement is of critical importance, and you must understand why certain techniques
for ad development work and others do not. What are the elements in the ad that catch
the searcher's eye and motivate them to take action?
Getting the potential consumer to notice and take action is critical. As with sys-
tems in the physical world, a body at rest will remain at rest until acted on by some
outside force. In the world of sponsored search, this force is the ad.
For the ad to resonate with a consumer, the ad must have some cognitive or emo-
tional fit with the person. The consumer must readily accept the ad into their learning,
problem-solving, or decision-making process in order for the ad to succeed.
In this chapter, we will establish the key underpinnings of developing advertising
copy for sponsored search and why certain ads work well and others do not. We will
focus at first on the individual level and then the aggregate level.
Searcher Reaction to Advertisements at the Individual Level
One must advertise to a single person. This has long been the hallmark of success-
ful advertising. But who is this individual? With the billions of people who could
be potential customers, certainly there must be some heuristics that will make this
targeting easier? Luckily, there are, and the application of these heuristics focuses the
targeting of the advertisement.
However, for a winning advertisement, it is informative to not think of your poten-
tial customers as a mass. Although we may aggregate certain features for efficiency's
sake, in the beginning we want to focus clearly on the individual. Thinking in the
mass mentality “… gives you a blurred view. Think of a typical individual, man or
woman, who is likely to want what you sell.” [
2
].
Concerning advertisements and searchers, we are again centered on the concept of
human information behaviors, just like we were with keyword selection (see Chapter
3). However, with keywords, much of our interest was in the cognitive aspects of
communication and human information processing, which is still an area in which
research is, at best, sketchy and rule-based.
On the advertisement side of things, things are not so bleak. Because reactions
to external stimuli (i.e., the ads) are behaviors (i.e., response time to click or not
click), reactions to ads are something that we can measure. Because these behaviors
are measurable, we have a lot more observed data to work with and therefore have
theories, models, principles, and heuristics that can guide us in the development and
crafting of advertisements.
In fact, from a purely empirical point of view, the advertisement is the best-
known aspect of sponsored-search advertising. You can test every word, every
image, and every aspect of display. This is much different than the customer side of
things, where the myriad of cognitive, contextual, and affective attributes are nearly
endless.
In sum, we know a lot about ads.
