Generic domain names can double the traffic from an Adwords campaign

I recently put together an in-depth test to try and determine what the impact of the domain name is on the results of an Adwords ad campaign.

For the purposes of the test, all that I varied was the domain name within the ad - all other factors, such as the ad headline, ad copy, maximum bid, landing page and so on were kept constant.

I also set up the campaign so that Google would rotate the ads more evenly to try and minimise the impact from Google's optimization routines.

The result? The ad with a generic domain name that exactly matched the topic I was targeting with the campaign received twice the clicks of the same ad with a "coined" non-generic domain name. A third control ad, using a semi-generic on-topic domain name performed somewhere between the two, but still substantially less well than the one with the generic domain name.

Note that both the CTR and the number of impressions increased when the generic domain name was included in the ad. It's these two improvements together that yielded the doubling in the number of clicks.

It's also worth pointing out that this kind of test is no longer possible under Google's current TOS as they recently banned the use of multiple domain names within a single ad campaign. Fortunately, I squeaked under the deadline and was able to run the test for a decent number of impressions (close to 100,000) before I had to suspend it because of Google's TOS change.

I've identified the niche, the specific keyphrases and ads used, and all the results from the campaign tests in the Study I've written up about it. You can download a copy in PDF format here.

Anyway, thought this might be of interest as one possible way to give an Adwords campaign a boost without the need for further tweaking. In theory, it should be possible to take an existing ad campaign, add an on-target generic domain name into the mix, and watch the results improve...

 

Hi Edwin Hayward,

Thank you for sharing this research. It's hard to believe that the domain name would affect the qty of impressions as this is dictated by keyword, match type, budget and max. bid price? I can't see how the target url would influence that.

We know that CTR's are through the roof on brand names and consequently command high quality scores ensuring high positions at a lower cost than others can achieve.

It seems from your research that using a domain name that is a generic keyword increases CTR which generally leads to a higher quality score. I wonder if this would be repeated with phrases like Buy{GenericKeyword}.com because I am not so sure about the availability of domains made up of popular keywords

Great report!

 

Thanks buddy for sharing this report. I will check it out.

@aunt_bessie: I agree, it should not be the case with more generic keywords where you hardly find any domain available.

Anyways google has also changed their TOS. so this cannot be used anymore.

 

I think the domain name pulled well in this case becasue it is very targetted to what the user is looking for (as is the case with all generic phrases).

And yes, when running adwords tests, the domain name always makes a massive change to the CTR's, I have found. Oh and by the way, you can still run this test for which domain name will get the highest CTR but not like you used to be able to, of course.

But my results usually look like this:

If you are bidding on generic keywords, then a generic URL will pull better. But if you are bidding on a specific term [small blue widget maker] then a more specific URL will pull better results ie smallbluewidgetmaker.com etc

You can beat specific on adwords - once you track what is converting for you, zoom in on it and you are set to make money.

AJ

 

Re. domain availability, for larger companies or entities running bigger campaigns, it may be worth costing in the purchase of appropriate generic domains on the aftermarket. The uplift that they could bring may quickly repay the purchase price (since there's no way to get that particular boost without a generic domain).

Re. the impressions issue, I believe it's because I had the campaigns set to show impressions more evenly. That is not the default setting, but it made the comparison between the ads clearer. But the side effect may be that Google boosted the impressions of the highest performing ad since that's the way that Google would wind up making the most money from the overall campaign.

 

I am still learning the adwords market so i really enjoyed this post!

 

Great post :thumbsup:

There are a lot of weird things that you probably wouldn't think about, but actually end up working well in your favor. I know in this case, I sometimes use different domain names for my own marketing, as well as clients to get them a better response. Well worth the $9 for the domain name in what you will get in the long run.

 

Just to be clear, I was actually advocating buying domains on the aftermarket if the ad campaign is significant enough to support the additional expense. At that point, you're looking at $xxx to $xx,xxx+ depending on the domain - and yet it's STILL possible to make a business case that the purchase is worth it, if the overall budget is high enough.

 

Yeah...That's true but we can adjust display URL. All we need to retrieve and get low rate traffic with high CTR.

 

Nice report. Can we give it away to others? Thanks

 

Yes, as long as you redistribute the original report still in PDF format and don't delete, modify or add to it in any way i.e. it retains all the exact content - and ONLY the content - that I put in it. That includes the original authorship attribution and my contact details.

Also, you can only redistribute it if it is free without any "hurdles" i.e. giving it away on a blog post or web page (or privately) is fine, but it can't be a freebie that's locked behind an email newsletter subscribe button or offered as a "giveaway bonus" in any other way. In other words, it shouldn't be used as any kind of "incentive".

Just wanted to make sure that was clear and unambiguous