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Posts Tagged ‘Perspective’

What They Want vs. What You THINK They Want

Friday, April 19th, 2013

 

Before we do anything else, pick the winner:




So without preamble, Ad A won the contest, more than doubling Click-Through Rates. And in looking at this win, I couldn’t help but see the results as part of a larger pattern, wherein ads containing copy about:

  1. Compatibility Matching, and
  2. “Affluent” Singles/Men

almost always lose to ads that offer the chance for the searcher to “find” matches on their own and that leave out any mention of affluence.

So if they don’t respond to these factors — or if searchers actually do care about them, but are offended at such a bald mention of them in PPC copy — then what DO they seem to respond to?


Answer: potential dates who are “mature” (even when the add isn’t specifically aimed at over-40 singles) and “ready to find someone” (which in this ad takes the form of “looking for dates”).


Now, this may not seem like that big a deal, because it’s “just” online dating, but the dynamic IS a big deal when you think about it in terms of using PPC to find out what your prospects ACTUALLY care about rather than what you THINK they care about.


And once you have that insight it’s applicable to far more than just PPC — it can then be used to improve landing pages, Web copy in general, and even e-mails.


But you’ll never get those insights unless you test, and unless your PPC ad writers come at the ads from different angles, testing out different appeals. In other words, unless you have multiple ad writers capable of adopting an outside perspective on your business and industry.


So what kind of testing are YOU doing? And what are you learning from those tests?


 

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


Will THEY Think It’s a Benefit?

Monday, January 28th, 2013

 

First, take a look at this recent, winning contest:




Now, a couple of things about these two ads:

  • They both have the exact same headlines and URLs
  • Each ad has one and only one promotional claim/info-bit that the other ad doesn’t
  • The winning ad has “Get Exclusive Access” and the losing ad has “Style Delivered Daily”
  • Apart from those two differences, both ads contain “Premium Brands,” “80% off,” and “Free Sign Up / Join For Free.”
  • The winning ad way more than doubled Click-Through Rates, bosting it by 185%


In other words, apart from some slight rephrasing, the differences that made the difference between these ads comes down to the increased appeal of “Get Exclusive Access,” which seems reasonable enough, and the repulsive effect of “Style Delivered Daily,” which seems kind of odd to consider at first.


Why would “Style Delivered Daily” REPEL searchers?


Possible Answer: because people don’t want that many offers junking up their in box. Or maybe, because it now sounds like they’ll be marketing to you, rather than granting you “Exclusive Access.”


Either way, the point is that it’s entirely possible, and even likely, that the prospects for this ad didn’t consider “Syle Delivered Daily” to be any kind of benefit they wanted. And may have considered it something to be actively avoided.


Three Take-Aways


First, that without testing, this brand could have made that phrase a key tagline of theirs, without ever realizing that it was actively driving prospects away from their website. That’s how crucial PPC Testing is!


Second, that a professional ad writer can and should put herself into the prospect’s mindspace to see what might NOT be so attractive to them, even if it’s something the company feels IS a selling point.


Lastly, in order for a professional copywriter to take an outsider’s perspective, it really helps if they are actually an outsider — someone outside the organization. In this case, the winning ad was penned by Booster JeffBaum71, who is indeed outside of the client’s organization.

So… are you sure that YOUR selling points are really seen as attractions by your prospects? Have you tested it?


 

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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 »


Where Are Your Seachers in their Shopping Process?

Wednesday, October 24th, 2012

 

Every now and then, I’ll look at a contest and think, that makes no sense whatsoever — that losing ad should have won!


Then I’ll stop to think about it, look through other contests to see if I can find any patterns, and the answer will pop out at me. This contest is one of those stumpers that required that kind of reflection:




Really, if you think about it, the losing ad is a much stronger ad, as it has:


  • A more engaging headline written in the language of the customer
  • A larger, bolder promise of benefit
  • And an explicit “what to expect” call to action promising immediacy of results


How could that go wrong? How could that lose to what reads like a bland and relatively week ad?


And then two factors hit me between the eyes:


  1. Scent Trail
  2. Buying Stage


Scent trail means “what exactly were the search terms and search intentions of the prospect and how well does the ad match those terms and intentions.”


If the actual search term was for “Transport Reviews” orr “Auto Transport Reviews” then guess which ad REALLY has the better headline…


Right! The winning ad’s headline provides an exact match for the search terms and search intentions, while the losing ad fails to use the actual search terms AND botches the intentions.


And searcher intentions brings up buying stage. Because if you’re intending to search for reviews on auto transport providers, you’re probably not READY to get price quote because your intention is to figure out:


  • Who to use
  • Who NOT to use
  • Who might be worth paying a premium to if you want to baby your car


And if those are your intentions, then you’re not yet ready for a price quote.


So again, looked at from that perspective, which ad is REALLY the stronger ad? Yup, the winning ad is the stronger ad — strong enough to power a 317% increase in Click-Through Rate!


No, this is great analysis AFTER the fact. Great because now you can look at your ads in terms of buying stage, and maybe test out some winning variations.


But perhaps the real lesson is that if you’re not actively testing ad variations written by writers with fresh eyes and solid training, then that super strong, effective ad you think you have could be just as underperforming as the losing ad in this contest…


 

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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 »


Tweaking Is More Than Chump Change

Friday, July 27th, 2012

 

Take a look at these ads and figure out the differences:




So what are the differences?


  • In the Title: use of a ® mark vs. no ® mark
  • 1st Line of Body Copy: Use of an exclamation mark vs. a period
  • Display URL: use of an appended “/free-moving-quote” vs. base URL alone


That’s it! Two changes to punctuation marks and a changed display URL. It’s hard to imagine a more slight form of tweaking than this. So, let me ask you:


1) Which ad produced outperformed the other? And…


2) How much of an increase in CTR did the winning ad create?


Answers: Ad A won, creating a 94% increase — almost doubling the click-through rate. To put this in perspective, BoostCTR almost doubled the performance of this ad by making the kind of changes that I’ve seen clients reject simply because they weren’t “big” or “substantive” enough.


The Takeaways


So what are the takeaways from this?


First, that tweaks are worth testing.


And, second, that you’ll never get around to testing performance-boosting tweaks if you insist that challenger ads be substantially different than your current best performers.


 

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