How Google Advertisements Attract Consumers’ Call-to-action and Electronic Word-of-mouth

Abstract

This study investigated central and peripheral route factors to assess the impact of Google Advertisements on how these factors contribute to users’ call-to-action (CTA) and electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM) behaviors. We explored the persuasive effects of Google Advertisements on consumers by using a dataset of 483 valid empirical samples from Taiwan. We employed structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine the hypotheses. The empirical results of this study indicate that both peripheral (image appeal) and central (information completeness) routes positively lead to the persuasion effect. This finding confirms that the peripheral and central routes increase the persuasion effect. The empirical results indicate that the most effective pathway was image appeal to the persuasion effect and, ultimately, to call to action. Image appeal was also determined to be a secondary pathway that enhances the persuasion effect, ultimately leading to e-WOM. These findings have valuable implications for companies seeking to attract customers to purchase electronic products through the Google search engine. The novelty of our study is that it includes the peripheral route. Our study findings were derived from the symbolic value lens, rather than the central route based solely on the utilitarian and hedonistic value perspective.