Growing up in Idaho and currently living in Utah, I have become an avid skier. For me, nothing beats the feeling of floating through deep, fluffy powder on a sunny, crisp day. So the other day I thought I’d look around for some end-of-season deals on skis. I went to Google and typed “skis”. These are the top 3 paid ads on the right side of the screen:
All 3 of these ads suffer from message mismatch.
First, our friends at Sport Chalet automatically assumed that I was interested in K2 skis. K2 is a respectable brand and they’re at the top, so I click the ad. What do I see?
Yep. I get a landing page with nothing on it. Hit back button. Next!
The second ad is even more baffling because the title reads “Skii Onsale”. I don’t know if it’s some European company that made a typo, but they have 10,000 products from main brands and 50% off so I give it a click.
Wow! Evidently it’s some type of skin care product that is in no way related to skis. Hit back button again. Next!
Now I’m a little bit flustered and I see that the third ad isn’t even about skis. They’re selling avalanche gear (last time I checked I didn’t want to be in an avalanche). My curiosity has been overrun by frustration and I close the browser tab.
Message Match and the Chain of Relevancy
Message match is created when keyword, ad copy and landing page build on each other progressively and intuitively. The end result is a chain of relevancy which helps the searcher progress from their search term to a compelling, benefit-driven ad to a clear landing page with a prominent call-to-action (CTA). So where did the 3 ads above fail?
Our first ad made the assumption that we were looking for K2 skis. If you’re going to bid on a term as generic as skis, you should have an ad that speaks more broadly (or maybe you should just bag the term all together). Obviously a blank landing page is a major fail, but you would also want to use a landing page that showed all your available skis, either by brand or by type of ski.
Our second ad is just bad keyword management. Since they sell a skin care product called SK II, they should add skis as a negative keyword and/or not have it included as a potential misspelling.
Lastly, our third ad erroneously assumes that because I’m looking for skis I would be interested in avalanche gear. The percentage of skiers who go into the backcountry (and therefore need expensive avalanche equipment) is very small and I would guess this keyword/ad combo has a very low CTR and QS.
Now, lest you lose faith in the PPC community, here is the 5th ad, which matches the search (broad and talking about winter clearance, which is why I’m looking) and has benefits (51% off, free shipping).
The landing page also matches, with a broad selection of skis (they even present Best Sellers first) clearly marked as “Winter Clearance”.
Conclusion
To quickly judge message match, ask yourself these three questions:
- What problem does the user need solved?
- Does my ad copy present a possible solution?
- Is my landing page offering that solution with a clear CTA?
Byline – Robert Brady has worked in the PPC industry for over 5 years and currently offers PPC management in Utah. He can be reached via email (robert@righteousmarketing.com) and Twitter @Robert_Brady.
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Robert – great post. Interesting to see such non-searcher friendly PPC ads showing up for the search term “skis”. You think Google would be doing a better job calculating the Quality score of these ads.
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