the PPC Book|Pay Per Click Blog | Long Tail Thoughts in a Short Tail World

Here’s a great example of how you can learn from the 800 lb gorillas in your industry. When I’m pointing out examples of best practices within our industry to client, I always encourage them to learn from those who are spending the most money, companies like Best Buy, Amazon, Orbitz, etc. Sure, they do things that make me scratch my head (ebay’s paid search), but more often than not, they are doing things well. Better than most of us can afford to. Example?

Today I was searching for a 19′ monitor. What I found was the usual assortment of ultra-competitive retailers hawking their prices on various stock for an approximately 1.5% margin. No one stood out to me in particular, save for one. I guarantee you almost no consumers notice this one thing that stood out to me, at least consciously. We, as marketers, should watch and learn, however. What thing am I talking about?

Query and Message Reinforcement -

Search marketing is composed of many things. 2 of the most important elements are QUERY and MESSAGE. First comes the query and then respond with the message that you won the right to display. You need to be consistent with your initial messaging. It has to be relevant to the query, and then reinforced throughout the sales cycle. Ideally you are repeating your message on the landing page. Almost no one does this because it’s too much work. When it is done, the results are self evident.

Here’s the example I found today.

Notice the ad copy:

And on the landing page, a beautifully relevant and consistent reinforcement:

What is impressive to me is the consistency in model/pricing between the ad and the landing page. Consider for a moment the size of the campaign they are managing with all Best Buy SKUs, and then multiply that by the ad copies they are responsible for. To actually pull this off cleanly is really labor intensive. I don’t know what agency is managing the PPC here, but hats off to a job well done. Not many of the other ads on this query did this as well as they have.