In the spirit of the Thanksgiving holiday with BLACK FRIDAY and CYBER MONDAY I thought it would be nice to discuss a brands reputation in PPC with regards to promotions and sales.

We all know that including promotional messaging in your ad text will most likely help your CTR.  Let’s take a look at the top ads in Google from the search query “women’s holiday outfits”.

If I am a bargain shopper, I am going to be looking for messaging in ad text related to pricing, discounts, sales and free shipping and that is the only thing I will be looking for.  So, if I end up clicking on Victoria’s Secret’s ad because the $39 price point is appealing to me and I end up liking what I see, subconsciously or not I perceive Victoria’s Secret as a brand that I can look to for great prices.

This is where the ultimate discussion comes into play for brands that constantly offer various promotional messaging when talking directly to their consumer via PPC, email campaigns, display advertising, etc.  If a brand’s messaging is discounting 100% of the time, a customer is going to buy into that messaging and only shop with that brand when they have the best deals and promotions running.  In essence the brand is training the customer to wait until they get that email promoting 60% off all products!  Why would the customer buy at a normal time with no discount if they know they get a weekly sale email.

If your brand image is not promo based, ensure you are not sending that message to your customers.  I am not advocating for brands to never launch promotions or discounting, just be mindful of the magnitude of your messaging.

Don’t get me wrong sales, discounts and free shipping messaging are great for PPC especially in competitive industries.  For big sale days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, if you not offering any type of incentive to your customers get out of the kitchen!

Gobble Gobble

Happy Turkey Day and Happy SHOPPING!