The importance of Display URLs

With a PPC text ad, 4 lines are all you get to make your impression. Yet most people give little thought to the display URL, which is 25% of your ad’s real estate. The display URL should be a major concern when writing your ad. I would venture to say that it’s more important that your description even.

Buy a new domain:
This is one place not to cheap out and try to save a few bucks by using a bad domain name. Go ahead and register a new one, or even multiple new ones to test a new offer. Using an old domain that you had lying around, that kind of fits the offer is a recipe for failure. Besides, 1 conversion could recoup the domain cost for a year.

Buy a good domain:
For some reason I don’t have any trouble finding good domains. I never buy .NETs or .ORGs, only .COMS. I hardly ever use hyphens or weird punctuation either. Remember, you are buying the domain to instill confidence in the searcher, not for SEO purposes. Obviously, the shorter the better, but multiple related words are better than punctuation I find.

Test display URLs

I like to run multiple ad copies in Google with the only difference being the display URLs. I have seen big changes in CTR from various URLs tested. Once you find the best converting URL you can switch everything over to that URL.

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6 Comments »

Comment by Shivaji

2007-05-24 02:31:17

Good thought on Display Urls. I have never seen before anyone blogged on this angle on display urls. Good to follow. Thank you.

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Comment by Max

2007-06-08 01:19:32

So are you just parking those domains that you buy and using their display URL while the actual link connects to a completely different content site URL?

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Comment by tony gee

2007-09-15 18:53:49

Good follow through on the URL display. I need to dig further into the pantry to come up with some more uniques URL content.

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Pingback by Domain strategies for PPC | CDF Networks - Affiliate Marketing Blog

2008-04-25 16:36:56

[…] PPC to affiliate campaign. I touched on this subject briefly almost a year ago in this post about display urls, but I wanted to expand on that. Your choice of domain names to host your landing pages will have a […]

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Pingback by Domain strategies for PPC

2008-04-28 05:07:26

[…] PPC to affiliate campaign. I touched on this subject briefly almost a year ago in this post about display urls, but I wanted to expand on that. Your choice of domain names to host your landing pages will have a […]

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Pingback by Domain strategies for PPC | Affiliated Commerce

2008-05-07 00:19:48

[…] PPC to affiliate campaign. I touched on this subject briefly almost a year ago in this post about display urls, but I wanted to expand on that. Your choice of domain names to host your landing pages will have a […]

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