Can Emotions Be Used as Keywords for Text-Based, Search-Engine Advertising?

Abstract

Click-through rates (CTR) of search-engine advertising remain elusive, thus triggering the need for more research on ad effectiveness. Using simple regression techniques on a data set of 110,000 search query–text ad pairs, we show that it may be meaningful for advertisers to target search queries by (1) using the emotion of the user as indicated by an emotion word in the search query and, then, (2) using positive emotion content in their ads to achieve congruency with the search-query emotion. The results indicate non-spurious correlations that advertisers might consider in their search engine advertising strategies.