Credit Card debt had a large impact on the breakdown of the economy and causing many Americans into bankruptcy. Because of this, major reform hit credit card in February passed down from the government. Most consumers see this as change for the better, while banks and lenders are expecting huge financial losses due the impact from these changes. 2010 will be a rocky period for credit cards, with a lot of media exposure pushing research search traffic due to the credit reform thus making successful marketing harder to accomplish. On the bright side, the end of 2009 ended very positively for credit cards, clicks were rising while average CPCs continued to stay low as many smaller advertisers stayed away. For 2010 stay focused on driving highly qualified traffic through proper ad copy and keyword coverage.

Falling CPCs in 2009

CPCs fell throughout 2009, lower than any time in 2008. The economy was the biggest driver of this trend and this also impacted impressions as they dropped off by mid April. On the flip side clicks started improving in late 2009 due to the increase in people looking to save money through rewards program. This helped bring a positive trend into 2010. Reward/Loyalty terms such as "rewards", "gift cards", and "cash back" all saw major click gains the second half of 2009. Alternatively the term "credit" saw major impression drops from the first half of the year to the second, dropping millions of impressions due to all the impact from the credit card fall out. Make sure to leverage this increase in reward keywords in 2010 as people are looking for ways to save money. Other than keywords, driving top positions is key to success in 2010. Outside of position 1, clicks and performance fall off significantly. Over 80% of clicks for the top 10 credit card keywords are served at position 1, though the costs are severely higher. Max bids increase significantly as positions increase, sidebar bids average around $1.00 while mainline ads range from $4.00-$6.00. Fighting for positions in the credit card verticals requires a high max bid threshold.

Hitting the Target Demographic

Ad copy is just as important as position in the credit card vertical as advertisers with high brand recognition drive performance. A combination of using "Official" and a trademark in the title creates significant lifts in CTR. Both these qualifiers in the title push brand recognition when competing against lead aggregators and small credit card resources.  Using keyword insertion also leads to improved CTR, by increasing the relevancy of an ad. When pushing keyword insertion make sure to leverage branding in the body of the ad copy. The demographics on the credit card vertical is not that much different than financial services as a whole. Top searchers for credit cards are females 35-49, with click spikes for females in the 18-24 age group and the 25-34 age group. In the older demographic of 65+ traffic drops significantly. Demo-targeting opportunities exist to help lower cost and improve ROI by removing the older and younger demographics from high volume high CPC keywords.

Credit Card Reform

The Credit CARD Act went into effect on February 22^nd 2010. There were many sweeping changes to credit card rules and regulation. These changes affect both the consumer and the credit card companies. Here are a few highlights from the bill:

. No retroactive interest rate increases on existing card balances. Credit card issuers can't interest rates for the ensuing 12 months after an account is opened. If your rate does go up after 12 months, it will apply only to new charges, not an existing balance.

. Consumers now have the right to opt out of -- or reject -- certain significant changes in terms on their accounts

. Credit card issuers will be banned from issuing credit cards to anyone under 21, unless they have adult co-signers on the accounts or can show proof they have enough income to repay the card debt.

. Credit card issuers would have to give card account holders "a reasonable amount of time" to make payments on monthly bills. That means payments would be due at least 21 days after they are mailed or delivered.