This is a little technique called prequalification, and it works with most types of advertising, but I've noticed particular results with Google Adwords. Here's how it works. I'll use a past experience as an example:

One of the products offered on Monster Web is a web development suite called "Website Tonight", and its purpose is to generate nice looking websites for people with little experience.

There is stiff competition for this type of product, so the cost per click on an Adwords campaign for any reasonably popular keyword pertaining to the niche would be pretty high. I looked at a few of my competitors' ads. They all seamed kind of similar - state the name of the product, maybe have a cute "build a website in minutes" "feature x" "feature y" etc etc. I have done ads like these, and gotten reasonable results, but what kicks the ROI into high gear is when you start to prequalify your leads.

Let's say a consumer is looking for web building software. Your ad is being displayed in the traditional "ENTICE PEOPLE TO CLICK NOW!!" format. They see all these ads all around them, and they click on yours. You have no idea what type of person this is. You don't know if they are looking for a robust professional system, if they are looking for a cheap or free system. All you know is that they typed in "website builder" into Google, liked your ad, and clicked on it.

I was getting maybe 1%-2% return on these types of ads. For every 100 that would click through, maybe 1-2 would make a purchase. 1% is not shabby, and it's in the range of "at least I'm making something", especially considering I was paying a dollar a click or more. However, once I started tweaking my ads in subtle ways, wow, the money started to roll in.

I did two things. First, I put the price of the item in my ad. So immediately we cut off the people looking for a freebie. People that click on the ad expect to pay for what they are about to view. Next, I added the word "professional." What did that accomplish? Well, I cater to businesses, and what do businesses have? They have money! They also want a professional grade product.. and they want my product.

The results were staggering. There was an immediate dropoff in click-throughs. I got half what I was getting with the generic "click me!" style ad. However, the conversion rate was...

NEARLY 20%!!!

That is correct, my sales went from a piddly 1%, to nearly 20%. 1 in 5 click-throughs was resulting in a sale. And people weren't just buying the software, they came to do business. I was very happy :-)

The next step was to increase my bid per keyword. It was worth paying the 3$ per click now and getting the better positions on Google, as I was screening my click-throughs ahead of time with the ad itself. I didn't have to wait until I got the customer on my page for them to decide that they'd rather use GeoCities. They knew right up front what the software was about and who it was for.

This is a very practical and useful technique and it has served me very well. Hopefully it will bring you some success in your ventures as well.

Copyright 2006 Joe Stec

Article by Joe Stec of Monster Web Online (www.monsterwebonline.com), the premier web hosting and domain services company for small business. Joe also publishes the Web Business Primer (www.webbusinessprimer.com), a blog about building and marketing an online business.