PPC - Pay Per Click Management

Hopefully, you have read the Part 1 to this article which looks into why colours are important in pay per click advertising for both publishers and advertisers. To try and sum it up, colours are what affects the CTR of adverts for publishers and the landing page’s conversion rate for advertisers.  Therefore, it is crucial PPC publishers and advertisers know exactly what each colour represents subconsciously to the web user. Part 1 looked at the three main colours being black, white and blue with notable points that black is powerful and dominant, white is sterile and pure with blue being tranquil and the stereotypical colour for links on the internet. Here are the remaining colours and what they mean to people.

Red is importantly the colour of blood. Therefore, when people see red, they become alert. The sight of blood (red) sends panic into people because it is the colour of danger. This is also why traffic lights, when wanting you to stop, are red (so that they make you alert and ready to stop). Red is also one of the most emotional colours (think of what colour dominates Valentine’s Day…). Therefore, if you want to gain an emotional response from a web user (such as wanting donations) or want to grab their attention, you may want to use red. However, if you use red too much, it might make your landing page look like spam which will significantly decrease your conversion rate.

Yellow is definitely not a colour to use online. The reason for this is because yellow is generally a very difficult colour to see and read. This makes people concentrate harder to see yellow. Another point about yellow is that there has been research that people lose their temper much quicker in yellow painted rooms than in any other colour rooms. I think this makes clear that you shouldn’t really use yellow. Although it is also associated with being an optimistic colour, the difficulties in seeing yellow and the overpowering anger caused by it may not help your PPC campaign.

Green is the colour which represents life, peace and nature. For this reason, it might be a good idea to use green. It is calming, peaceful and will make the web user think about natural thoughts. This is a great beneficial factor for using green because everyone over the last decade, everyone has become much more concerned about the environment and human’s carbon footprint. Therefore, by adding a touch of green will make web users, even if you are not environmentally friendly, think you are.

Purple is named as an artificial colour. This basically means that it is difficult to come by purple naturally. However, it is the colour which signifies luxury and wealth. For this reason, you may want to use purple on your landing page. If you want to give your product/service a USP of seeming expensive, purple is the colour to use. I guess this is why Apple always use purple backgrounds when releasing new technology such as the iPad and iPhone!

Brown is an unfortunate colour as it is mainly associated with being a dirty and unclean colour. However, deep down, brown is the colour which represents the abundance of nature. However, I think it would be best if you stayed away from brown…