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The Clean Bathroom Approach to PPC Ad Copy

May 9th, 2013 by Jeffsexton

 

We naturally believe in the principle of internal consistency. It may not make sense in every situation, but we believe it anyway.


If you walk into a restaurant’s bathroom and it’s filthy, you wonder how clean — or disgusting — the kitchen is, even though it’s unlikely that the same people who clean the bathroom also work in kitchen. Or at least one hopes that it’s unlikely!


Well, the same principle of internal consistency applies to PPC Ad copy. Take a look at the following contest, and with that principe in mind, see if you can’t pick out which ad outperformed the other:





So, assuming that the search Keyword was “Turquoise Earrings” the ads are fairly similar, with Ad A offering more specifics to strengthen the “save” claim and Ad B strengthening the free shipping claim with “on all orders.” But frankly, neither of those is the deciding factor here


The deciding factor that put Ad B ahead on Click-Through Rates was the internal consistency between the headline offer of “Turquoise Earrings” and the body copy describing them as “Beautiful & Authentic.” Because when you’re talking about natural stone — especially a natural stone that’s often over-dyed and imitated — a claim of “authentic” is naturally what you’d expect to hear. It’s internally consistent with the offer, thereby making the whole ad more persuasive and believable.


And that’s why Ad B won the contest AND a spot in today’s WIn of the Week column.


 

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Are Your PPC Ads a Joke?

May 6th, 2013 by Jeffsexton

 

When you’re telling a joke, you’ve got to hold the punchline until the end. It’s the surprise punchline that gets the laughs. Works great for comedy, but it’s lousy for PPC Ads.

When people scan search results, they’re looking for immediate confirmation of relevance — will this result take me to what I want? — that can be effortless confirmed as they sweep their eyes over the results for, oh, just slightly longer than a nano-second, I suppose.


And that means the keywords and trigger words need to be as high up and far to the left of the ad copy as possible. At the front of the headline, at the front of the first line of body copy. That sort of thing. A PPC Ad isn’t a joke — don’t save your keyword “punchline” until the end!


With that principle in mind, the rather confusing results from this test start to make a lot more sense:




If the keyword is cookware, you’d think ad copy that focuses exclusively on “Cast Iron Pots, Pans, and Dutch Oven Sets” would alienate a lot of people who are in the market for stainless steel, copper, non-stick, and most other kinds of cookware. In other words, you’d think that the cast-iron exclusivity would sink the winning ads performance. But oddly enough, it didn’t.


So what happened?


The winning ad used “cookware” earlier in the headline, and in the first line of copy, AND used the confirming add-on words of “Pots, Pans, and Dutch Oven Sets.” When searchers glance at that ad, they instantly know that it’s relevant to their search, and may even overlook the “Cast Iron” part.


Compare this to the losing ad, which delays the use of the keyword to the end of the headline, doesn’t use cookware at all on the first line of copy and uses no other trigger words or confirming language. This ad is sort of a joke, in that it saves the trigger words until the end, making it harder to scan for relevance.

And how much difference does this really make? Well, for this test, it was a 49% increase in Click-Through Rates — which is no small difference!


So take a tip from the boosters: don’t save those keywords and trigger words for the end — put them high and to the left in your copy and use them generously throughout your copy. Because your PPC ad copy is no laughing matter.


 

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Posted in Ad Text Tips, Ad Writing Techniques, AdWords Ad Best Practices, Copywriting, Paid Search, Tips From The Boosters | No Comments »



Weekly PPC Update – Cinco de Mayo Edition

May 5th, 2013 by Tom Demers

 

Hello friends!  Hope you are enjoying your weekend, but let’s put down our margaritas for a moment to catch up on the past week’s latest PPC news, shall we?

 

First, from Google……..

 

Google is sunsetting the spreadsheet edit feature effective May 30.  This makes sense since they’ve been rolling out bulk edit features and bulk keyword uploads recently.   Will you miss it?

 

A new series of Learn with Google webinars will be starting soon.  Webinars are held at 1 p.m. EST on Tuesdays through Thursdays and are categorized as follows:  YouTube, Shopping, Research, Analytics, Mobile, Search, Social and Display.  You can visit the webinar site to learn more and to sign up.

 

Have you gone to any of these AdWords Office Hours?  Well, “gone to” as in gone to the Google+ Hangouts?  It’s an opportunity to ask questions in real time to the Google team about AdWords.  Pretty cool.  You can see the most recently asked questions and answers here. The first question this past week was a good one, Are there some niches that just always have low quality scores due to high competitor clicks? If so, will the results to boost the QS higher always be limited? Check out the whole transcript.  Some really good stuff in there.

 

Now, from Yahoo/Bing Ads……..

 

If you’re brand new to Bing Ads, you can find a nice introductory video here to help you get started.  It’s only 2 minutes!

 

If you have clients who have been asking what Bing ads can do for them, here’s a handy infographic that breaks down the power of Bing Ads, including numerous improvements that have been made to the platform, its reach, and quotes from happy customers.  What are you waiting for?

 

Father’s Day is coming up next month, and Bing Ads blog has some recommendations and best practices to get you thinking about how to advertise for this holiday. Also included are some useful statistics for making the case to up budgets during this time.

 

Not to be outdone by Google Hangouts and the like, Bing Ads has been offering podcasts to help advertisers get up to speed with the latest and greatest from Yahoo/Bing.  There are downloads to two recent podcasts here.

 

Finally, from Bing Ads last week, another “Bing Ads and You” series post.  Advanced diagnostics will be coming soon to Bing Ads, and will allow advertisers to: Identify which keywords within your account could be delivered in response to a search term but being disqualified due to issues with campaign quality and campaign settings, along with actionable feedback to fix these issues.

 

Finally, from elsewhere on the web………..

 

Search Engine Land reports on a study that shows exactly how well PLAs are working.  “Bucking the typical trend of CSEs (and e-commerce in general), paid Google Shopping traffic nearly doubled in post-holiday Q1 compared to Q4.”  We aren’t really surprised as these were really not rolled out until late last year.

 

Search Engine Journal has a very useful article to help manage automated rules.  It’s called The Art of Setting Up a 360-Fail Safe System When Utilizing AdWords Automated Rules. Some good advice there.

 

Finally, from Search Engine Watch, 7 Essential Skills for Managing PLA Campaigns.  If, as the article above states, we are really all spending more on PLAs, it’s critical that these campaigns are managed correctly!  Check out the steps to success in this article.

 

That’s it for this week, folks!  Enjoy the upcoming week.

 

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Precipitating Events

April 29th, 2013 by Jeffsexton

 

Some of us are proactive some of the time. And by some of the time, I mean like 2-5%. The other 95 to 98% of the time we are reacting to something, whether it’s a sudden opportunity or a newfound problem.


I mean, do most of us buy running shoes just because? Or do we buy a new pair when our old ones break down? Or at the start of a new running season? Or when someone comments on how ratty our old pair looks?


Why does this matter for PPC? Because people don’t conduct a search just because either — they usually conduct a search as a respons to an event. And keeping that event in mind helps you write ad copy that’s more immediately relevant and response-generating.


Check out this recent win and see for yourself:




The winning ad won because it was more relevant to the most likely precipitating event for safety signs: someone was notified that they were NOT in compliance with workplace safety standards. And who is most likely to be doing the notifying? Well, OSHA and ANSI, of course.


I think it would work even better had the winning ad also mentioned the availability of express shipping, since fixing a safety discrepancy usually comes with some sense of urgency, but overall, it’s the ad that most directly addresses the emotional state and motivations stemming from the precipitating event that wins. In this case, the ad boosted CTR by 20%


So take a tip from the Boosters and give some thought to what kind of precipitating events are motivating your prospective customers. Then adjust your ad copy accordingly.


 

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Weekly PPC Update – Spring Flowers Edition!

April 28th, 2013 by Tom Demers

 

It seems like we are getting a proper spring here in New England this year.  Leaves and blossoms seem to be exploding on the trees and from the ground and we have a week of mid-60s temps ahead of us (and behind us).  Usually, it goes from snowing to sultry, but not this year!  Hope your neck of the woods is pleasant as well.

 

Let’s see what was happening in PPC land last week, shall we?

 

First, from Google……………..

 

After a week of relative silence, Google had a lot of posts last week.  On Monday, Google announced two additions to Enhanced Campaigns:  social annotations which Google says improve CTR by 5-10%, and enhanced campaigns for mobile app advertisers.  The social annotations will be shown for advertisers that have a Google + page with a significant number of followers, and a linked website that matches the URL in your ads.  Mobile app advertisers can now use Enhanced Campaigns to reach the average US consumer who spends an average of 127 minutes a day in mobile apps!

 

Google has launched an upgrade center to make the transition to Enhanced Campaigns easier.  Here you will you be able to upgrade several campaigns at a time and merge campaigns together with just a few clicks.  Check out the full post here.

 

New features are also available for Display Ads.  There is now a Google Display Planner, and two new reports for Demographics and Placement Performance.  The Display Planner delivers key related details: impression and cookie ranges for Google’s inventory, age and gender breakdowns, and historical cost-per-click (CPC) information.  Pretty cool!

 

The Customer Journey to Online Purchase from the Google AdWords blog outlines how this tool works, which includes aggregating statistics for benchmarking.  The tool draws on behavior analytics from over 36,000 Google Analytics accounts!

 

Google gives a shout out to Mad Men in this post to intro the announcement that they’ve achieved accreditation for their viewability measurement solution, Active View.  Google says they see this becoming the new standard for how impressions are bought, sold and measured, replacing the “served impressions” metric we have today.  Read the post here.

 

Now, from Bing Ads……………….

 

If you’ve been putting off becoming Bing Ads certified, don’t delay!  Here’s a video that shows why people think the education and certification system is great.

 

This post has a chart outlining all of the searchers you are missing out on if you aren’t advertising on the Yahoo Bing network. Data is taken from a December 2012 ComScore report.

 

From the Bing Ads and You blog post series comes Keyword Distribution Graph Coming Soon.  This very cool new feature enables advertisers to visualize key performance indicators (KPIs) across thousands of keywords and easily explore optimization opportunities and you can sign up for the beta test within the post.

 

Finally from Bing for this week, Exception Request Best Practices for Agencies outlines some steps you can take to get your content live on the Yahoo Bing network sooner.

 

And, from elsewhere on the web………

 

Search Engine Land has Google AdWords Support Launches Screen Sharing Functionality and A Good Start for Paid Search in 2013.

 

Search Engine Watch has Video Ad Views Hit All Time High:  13 Billion and Location & Lifestyle Key Drivers for Mobile Path to Purchase in UK, US.

 

That does it for last week’s news.  Have a great week, friends!

 

 

 

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