Boost Your PPC Click Through Rate: Test Domain Names

I’ve been busy setting up a few new campaigns.  While working on these campaigns I realized just HOW important domain name selection is in your overall PPC success.  If you ever troll forums like Digitalpoint or the Wickedfire Newbie section, the same question tends to get asked time and time again.  It’s usually phrased something like this:

I’m starting a new campaign on Google Adwords and wanted to know if I should buy a new domain name specifically for this campaign, or should I use a domain I already own?

BUY A NEW DOMAIN!

The domain name used in a text ad on Google, Yahoo or MSN can make or break your campaign.  Did you hear me?  MAKE OR BREAK!

Let’s say you are planning on entering the ever popular ShamWow niche and are bidding on the term ShamWow.  Here is the order in which your domains will get the best click through rate (CTR):

CleaningProducts.com – Low CTR
BuyShamWow.com – Good CTR
ShamWow.com – Killer CTR

You may have already owned the domain name CleaningProducts.com for some other affiliate campaign you were trying to get working in the past.  The tendency is to try to recycle that name because you already own it and after all, ShamWow IS a cleaning product.  Don’t do it.  ShamWow.com will obviously be a taken domain and you won’t be able to use it.  For this reason you need to look for another highly relevant but short domain that contains the main keyword.  BuyShamWow.com or some sort of variation of it may be available and would be your best bet with a campaign of this nature.  The $10 you will spend getting the PERFECT domain name for your campaign is worth it in terms of CTR and overall profit of the campaign.

Here is an example of a campaign that I just setup and how drastically domain name effected the CTR of the text ads.  Each text ad that I setup for the campaign was exactly the same, except for the domain name being used.  I can’t share the actual domain name or campaign details, so for examples sake the word KEYWORD will be used to replace the actual keyword in these domains:

keyword.com – 2.91% CTR
keyword-fans.com – 0.71% CTR
freekeywordgiftcard.com – 0.67%
thekeywordblog.com – 0.09%

Since all 4 of these text ads were the exact same text ad with just the domain name switched out, you can see the drastic difference that a domain name makes to a PPC campaign.

Ad Hustler