What Ad Position Works Best in Search Engine Marketing?

MoreVisibility - September 4, 2008

If you ask most companies who are doing search engine marketing what ad position works best, the overwhelming response would be number one.  Companies are always competing to be in top positions and most want to be number one.  However, you have to ask to yourself when doing search engine marketing if ad position one will work best for your company. The proper way to find out is to run some tests. How well do your campaigns perform when you’re at position one relative to positions 3 or 4?  The type of business you have can affect how well you do in certain ad positions as well. It affected a real life furniture company.

A furniture company which we’ll call “The Sofa Company” started out bidding for positions 1-2. They were doing okay, but somehow there was a feeling they could do better. When we targeted ad positions 3-4 their click thru rate increased. What’s the reasoning? Most people when shopping for furniture don’t buy the first piece they see, they do comparison shopping and then buy. “The Sofa Company” did well because by the time people got to them at position 3-4 they were more ready to buy and because the “The Sofa Company” had good prices, they were able to make the sale. This doesn’t work for every company. Other companies only do well when they’re in the top 2 ad positions. Ad positioning has to be explored on a case by case basis. The best way to know is to test. You may be surprised to find that for your particular company ad position 3 works best.