With an estimated 4,500 keywords/key phrases relating to merchant acquiring, merchant acquirers have to make judicial choice in their bidding for different types of keywords in their PPC campaign. In our research, we have found 5 keyword types:
- Service Ads: These types of keywords/key phrases are related to merchant processing. Typical keywords/key phrases might be: “merchant accounts”, “cheap merchant processing”, “lowest rates on merchant processing”. Generally, the ads attached to these keywords tout the providers’ integrity, low-cost or some other feature. In the best case scenario, they make an offer to the prospect.
- Competition: these keywords are related to the competition. The point of bidding on these keywords/key phrases is intercept merchants that are looking for a competitor. For example, ISO ABC bids on keywords such as “Square”, “PayPal”, “Vantiv” in order to intercept merchants performing this type of search and present them with an ad that might capture their attention and direct them to the ISO’s website.
- Recruiting: Some ISOs and POS software vendors do bid on keywords related to recruiting such as “” in order to locate talent in different areas of the country. Banks studied in our report never use AdWords for recruiting. First of all, banks are known and are usually approached by job seekers; secondly, most of their recruiting efforts are either through agencies, job fairs, etc. ISOs and POS software vendors are less visible and known to the general public and would need different means to get talent, especially from outside the industry. AdWords is one way of achieving that purpose.
- Lead Capture: These keywords and key phrases such are “PayPal vs Square” or “best credit card processor” are meant to intercept merchants that already in an advanced mode in their buying cycle. They have already decided to buy and they are just looking to get educated. Having the right ad can intercept these merchants and lead to an ISOs website provided the ad triggers the merchants’ curiosity or puts doubt in their mind. For example: “4 mistakes you should avoid when signing up with Square” is guaranteed to capture a merchant’s attention than “Use your phone to process credit cards for 1.69%”
- Product Placement: the last type of keyword that acquirers bid in the hope to capture prospects are products either by their generic name or by their brand name. For example, we could see bids on “gift cards” or “tendercard”. This could work depending on the branding put behind the product as was the case with Square. But in some instances, if the prospect doesn’t know the product by name, and if the name can be mistaken for something else, it might be problematic. For example, bidding on Merchant Warehouse’s Genius platform could result in zero conversion but high clicks because most people searching for the word Genius are probably not looking for Merchant Warehouse’s platform.
Below are the percentage of acquiring entities that use each type of these keywords. The report* details each acquiring entity’s usage of these keywords and points at the correlation between the type of keyword and success in clicks generated.
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These keywords and key phrases are only the first step in a PPC campaign. The real challenge is the copy of the ad that needs to be trigger a doubt, a curiosity or make the prospect ask a question they didn’t have prior to reading it and provide the answer for it. The purpose of the ad header and text is not to talk so much about the features and benefits, but to create an itch that the prospect didn’t have and the promise of a relief from that itch when clicking on the ad.
On this front, not many acquirers manage to pull ahead of others**. In fact, most acquirers are still focusing on offering only very generic unemotional and uninteresting ads that leave most prospects indifferent.
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* For more information on successful online acquisition of merchants, please refer to Adil Consulting’s report: How to Acquire Merchants Online: An in-Depth Study of 67 ISOs, Banks, and POS Software Providers’ AdWord Campaigns
** Adil Consulting will publish a report in the month of July about the type of ads, copy and landing pages that have the highest conversion rate complete with real life examples and exhibits.