Which ad solicited the highest response?

These ads appeared next to each other when I asked Google to define "part and parcel" and I followed an idioms link. (Don't ask.)

Here is an excellent example of an AdWords test, though I didn't expect to see them side by side. It certainly makes me wonder which ad receives the higher response.

It also makes me think there is a level of marketing analysis that I'm missing. What do people respond to? What makes them click the link? What turns a click into a purchase?

I suppose in order to answer those questions, I'd have to stay in grad school a while longer. But I am curious about the psychological workings that influence and push consumer behavior.

I would like to think that people are surprising and difficult to predict, even in this day of instant feedback. Am I wrong? Has anyone stumbled upon the secret code to consumer behavior? (I can tell you it is not revealed in the book Groundswell.)

A sneak preview

I don't want to reveal too much before the book reports in class, but I've been thinking about something I read in Groundswell the other night. The authors divide participation in social networks into six categories: creators, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators, and inactives.

Creators create content—they write articles, blog, maintain a web site, upload video or audio. 

Critics comment and respond to content. They write reviews, post comments on blogs, or contribute to forums.

Collectors help to organize the web by saving URLs on bookmarking services (like del.icio.us), voting for sites (Digg), or using RSS feeds. (I don't really understand this category yet.)

Joiners maintain a profile on a social network site. The authors put this group at 25% of the adult online population, but the number is growing rapidly. In an article in the Oregonian, Peter Ames Carlin wrote that the number of Facebook members, age 30+, grew 200% in 2008.

Spectators look but don't participate.

Inactives have internet access but do not participate.

The point the authors make is how important it is to know who you're marketing to and how the different groups interact.

In terms of trying to reach these online "personalities," I have a few questions that I hope the book will answer:

Do people's online activities predict their purchasing behavior? A person is probably a creator only in a particular field or area of interest and participates at a lower level in other areas. But I also image that they tend to be early adapters—always the first to buy new gadgets or try new technologies. We already know early adapters are crucial to product launches and influence public opinion, but how hard (and expensive) is it to influence the influencers?

As online marketers, is it effective to reach these groups in their playground? Are marketing and advertising efforts on the web seen as nothing more than an intrusion and received with skepticism and mistrust?

Are these categories just another way to describe personality types? Or do people behave differently from their personality type online? 

With the online world changing so rapidly, is it even feasible to keep track of all this? I can imagine someone moving quickly from a spectator to a critic to a creator as they become more comfortable with the technology. How do you focus on a moving target? Millions of moving targets?

I'm not sure where I fall on the spectrum of the social networking population. Since I'm blogging twice a week, I'd have to put myself into the creator category at the moment. But my blogging activity will probably end right about mid-March. I guess I'm a joiner, but I feel more like a spectator. I've been a member of LinkedIn for years but never did more than fill out my profile. And recently, I joined Twitter and Facebook, but I don't know that I'll keep those accounts active for long. I don't feel compelled to share much, but I will admit to wasting a fair amount of time seeing who's out there. 

Curious if anyone out there feels like slapping a category on for size. I have my suspicions.