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Posts Tagged ‘Elements’

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Moving Beyond Keyword Match-Up

Friday, May 17th, 2013

 

Before we do anything else, guess which ad outperformed the other:




Answer: Ad B outperformed Ad A by 817%. Let that sink in for a minute — Ad B created an 800% increase in Click-Through Rates!


So what’s the big difference? Here are the obvious ones:


  • Shop vs. Find
  • Modern & Unique vs. Eclectic
  • Containers & Tools vs. Canisters, Jars, & Tools


So which elements are the crucial ones?


Frankly, with that much of an increase in CTR, I think there’s plenty of credit to go around and I think that all of Ad B’s changed words represent an improvement, but if I had to weigh one change more heavily than the rest, I’d put it on the last one: moving from the more generic “containers & tools” to the much more visual and imaginable “canisters, jars, & tools.”


Why?


First because vivid, imaginable words almost always do better. But mostly because I think that “canisters” and “Jars” are really what searchers are looking for when they search for kitchen storage and tools. And, really, creating a significantly better match-up of searcher intent is pretty much the ONLY way to get over an 800% improvement!

So what’s the take-away?

Testing, really. When seemingly small, but smart word choices can make an 800% difference in response rate to your ad, you’d be foolish NOT to test those kinds of changes, wouldn’t you?


And if I had to give another, I’d say always look further than mere keywords to the buyer intent expressed by those keywords, because matching-up with buyer intent is the real key to extraordinary PPC Ad performance, which is why this contest was this week’s Win of the Week.


 

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Posted in Ad Text Tips, Ad Writing Techniques, Ads in the Wild, Copywriting, Paid Search, Win of the Week | No Comments »


Clarity Up-Front

Monday, March 11th, 2013

 

The faster your PPC ad shows the prospect how what you’re selling matches up with what she’s searching for, the better your ad will perform.


Obviously, message credibility, deal sweeteners, and other ad elements play an important part, too, but ultimately your ad has to tell searchers how you’re selling exactly what they’re looking for. And your ad’s ability to do this early in the copy is a bigger success factor than most people think.


And this recent contest represents a perfect example of this dynamic at work:




Notice that the losing ad actually has a rather powerful offer element that the winning ad doesnt: a claim of 55% savings. Yet the ad still lost this contest because it doesn’t tell the searcher what’s for sale until later in its copy, and because it never explicitly shows the searcher how what’s for sale matches up with the searcher’s desire.


In other words, the winning ad says “NY Botantical Garden Pass” right in the headline. People searching for New York Botanical Garden tickets immediately see that and know they’ve got a great match-up between the product for sale and what they need.


The losing ad, on the other hand, mentions the botanical gardens in the headline, but doesn’t say anything about tickets or passes until the first line of body copy. And then the searcher has to make the connection between the pass that’s for sale, and the botanical gardens.


In other words, in reading the losing ad, it’s implied that the botanical gardens are one of the “50+ New York Attractions that can be seen for 55% off,” but it’s not nearly as explicit or clear as it is in the winning ad. And even the implied message doesn’t get fully pieced together until almost the end of the ad.


The winning ad, on the other hand makes it clear directly from the headline and then further clarifies that the pass is also good for other attractions INCLUDING the searched-for Botanical Gardens.


So savings-schmavings — even without the 55% off claim, the winning ad boosted Click-Through Rates by 151% simply through clarity up front.


Like a lot of tips from the boosters, clarity up front sounds easy, but it’s a lot less easy when it’s your business you are writing about — things that are perfectly clear to you, may not be clear to an outsider. The Curse of Knowledge is hard to overcome!


That’s why it pays to have your PPC ads written by an outside copywriter trained in PPC Ad writing techniques.


 

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


Bump It Up to Boost It Up

Thursday, February 28th, 2013

 

OK, before anything else, guess which PPC Ad boosted Click-Through Rates over the other:




OK. The winner was Ad B. Now let’s explore why…

Last week I wrote about testing to find out which PPC Ad offer elements generated the most response, since the elements that YOU think are most important aren’t necessarily the ones that your prospects will respond to most strongly.


This week I’m writing about what to do when you find response-boosting offer elements. Answer: test PPC Ad variants that move the response-boosting offer element higher up in the ad hierarchy. Here’s what I mean by that:


  • If the offer element was in the second line of body copy, try testing it in the first line
  • If it was in the first line, try testing it at the front of the first line rather than the end, OR
  • Try testing the offer element in the headline instead of the body copy.
  • And if the offer is in the headline, try testing it at the front or head of the headline.


In the case of this week’s WOTW contest, the element in question is the “30-80% off” claim, and the winning ad moved that offer element from the end of the first line of body copy into the headline.


And by bumping that offer element up to the headline, the winning ad boosted Click-Through Rates by 134%!


So if you want to boost it up, bump it up!


 

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Posted in Ad Text Tips, Ad Writing Techniques, Copywriting, Paid Search, Win of the Week | No Comments »


Which element of your offer is most important?

Friday, February 22nd, 2013

 

The old newspaper adage is, “Don’t bury the lede” — meaning to put the most interesting and exciting part up front in the headline or lead sentence of your story. If you lead with the less exciting parts, you end up “burying” it in the body of the article, where it might never get read.


But PPC Ads don’t have the luxury of “burying” much — either it gets featured in the ad, or it gets dropped. And a lot rides on the hard decision of what to feature and what to leave out.


So how do you make that decision?


Easy, you don’t. You let your customers make it for you by testing different ads with different offer elements in them. Then the winning ads can tell you which offer elements are most important, and which are so important that they should be pushed to the first line of copy or the headline.


Our most recent Win of the Week is a perfect example of this process:




One ad features free shipping and the other features the year-long return policy. Which one is more important?


As it turns out, the return policy beat out the free shipping offer by 149%


That’s why those of us in the optimization business say that “testing rules and opinion drools.” Because nothing delivers a bankable, real-world decision like a split test.


So which elements of YOUR offer are most important? And have you made sure of that by testing them?


 

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Posted in Ad Text Tips, Ad Writing Techniques, Copywriting, Paid Search, Win of the Week | 2 Comments »


Yes, A Little Thing Like That DOES Matter!

Thursday, December 27th, 2012

 

Sometimes people look at a small tweak and think, could a little thing like that really matter all that much?


Well, yes. Emphatically “Yes!” Little things like:


  • Moving keywords form the end to the front of phrases
  • Moving key persuasive elements from the second line of body copy up to the first
  • Moving key elements from the first line up to the headline
  • Adding or removing small adjectives and modifiers
  • Including a Call to Action vs. skipping the CTA
  • Fitting in an extra use of a key search term, and
  • Swapping out synonyms to spin spinn different connotations


These things can all matter a great deal. Sometimes not, but on average, yes, these little things improve performance, but you won’t know until you test them. And here’s a perfect example:




Here’s what you should notice:


  • The key search term “VX Pro” is at the beginning of the headline for the winning ad, and at the end of the headline for the losing ad.
  • The key term “VX Pro” platform is repeated again on the first line for the winning ad, and a more generic, related set of terms is used on e first line of the losing ad.
  • The winning ad ends with an imaginable Call to Action while the losing ad is totally missing a Call to Action.


Of course, if you’re really an ad copywriting pro, you won’t even consider these things “Little” anymore. They’ll seem more like proven best practices, instead, which is actually what they are. And testing them out on your ads should form a key part of your ad optimization strategy.


So, yeah, these “little” things really do matter!


 

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


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