I’ve fiddled around a bit with some online ads and I didn’t see a great return on investment (RoI) like I had expected.

Usually, when I create an ad, I put all the things positive about the product that I’m trying to sell. The thought was to do whatever it takes to get them to come to the site, because then they will buy.

This scheme may work with a cost per impression (CPI) payment rate for ads, where the advertiser pays for the number of times the ad appears, not how many times the ad is clicked on. Many advertising rates are listed as cost per click (CPC), meaning the advertiser pays for each person who clicks on the ad.

With CPC pricing, it may be advantageous to put something more real, such as cost, as part of the advertisement. This way, the consumer makes a little bit more information about purchasing the product before the click on the ad, and before the advertiser pays for that click.

While displaying price or other details as part of an ad may not increase the traffic to the site, it may increase the overall quality of the customer that does.

This may or may not work with some advertising services, such as Google Adwords. This service (and perhaps others) gives better performing ads better positions on sites. By displaying the price on the ad, this may decrease the click through ratio of the ad, and Google may not display the ad quite so previlently.

I haven’t actually tried any of this, but this is some of my current theory. I hope to try it in the upcoming months, and I’ll try to report back about how it goes.