8 Tips to Get the Most Out of Digital Ads, From Our PPC Expert
Ad blockers are the next obstacle for marketers trying desperately to reach the internet masses.
While there’s nothing you can do about ad blockers, what you can do is reduce PPC waste and protect your digital budget by creating ads people actually want to see.
For eCommerce marketers, strategic ads can help you waste less and invest in the ads that have the highest CTR and best conversion rates.
In my role as Head of Acquisition at Yotpo, my days are spent creating and testing the best ads and maximizing my PPC budget.
I want to give you some tips on how to get the most bang for your buck by creating ads that will turn on people’s attention, not turn it off.
1. Add an Offer to the Headline
An offer always catches the customer’s eye. Play with how you display the discount — sometimes it’s better to offer a big percentage discount than a dollar amount off.
For example, the company below offers a great discount (70% off and free shipping), but it looks like less because it says 40% first.
In contrast, Nordstrom Rack made the discount clear. It’s important to note that they used “up to,” allowing them to offer less discounts on the site, but getting people to click through by showing their best discount.
The lesson: Add discounts. And when you do, always test how tiny tweaks impact your results.
2. Use Questions
Questions engage the user. If a user searched for “shoes” on Google, he might be more prone to click on your ad if it looks like this:
Than if it looks like this:
Using a question in your ad can help you stand out in search results. This is especially true when you have a lower position — if you’re the only site using a question in your ad, you’ll stand out from the pack.
3. Target the Right Audience With the Right Ad
In both Google and Facebook it is extremely important to match the ad to the audience you are targeting.
On Google, if you are targeting a certain keyword, adding the actual keyword to the ad will magically improve your CTR and quality score.
If you are targeting a certain location, it’s even better to add the actual location to the ad.
When it comes to creating effective Facebook ads, you have the opportunity to target, for example, different age ranges, genders or locations, so you should to change the creatives accordingly. Don’t present the same ad creative to different demographics.
In addition to testing different creatives among different audience, it’s also smart to test different product ads separately by age, gender and location. A 50-year-old woman in New York is likely interested in different products than a teenage boy in California.
If you have a lot of products and a decent amount of traffic, you can also try to test the dynamic re-marketing for product ads on Facebook and Google.
In conclusion, don’t just put the same ad everywhere. It’s very important to target your ads to the specific audience you’re reaching in order to get the best results.
4. Never Stop Testing Everything
If there is one rule you need to follow when running PPC campaigns, it is never stop testing. And test everything.
Even when you think there is no room for improvement, you’ll be surprised how even one little change can make a difference.
Every time you want to change anything in your ad — the copy or the image — it’s always better to test it first, so you have the data to back it up.
Testing can also help you prove that something doesn’t work, and then you’ll know and not use it again.
Don’t think you know what will work — a lot of the test results will surprise you.
Take a look at the test we ran. At first glance, the two ads seem almost identical, but changing the button on the banner to say “Read our guide” instead of “Download eBook” increased CTR by 50%!
Additionally, we tested these two ads, one of which emphasized authenticity in the headline, the other which emphasized online product reviews and only mentioned authenticity in the body text.
We went into this test assuming authenticity in the headline would win — but the results surprised us: the second ad increased CTR by 67%
5. Improve Your Landing Page
You would think that improving your landing page has nothing to do with ad improvement.
But when you improve your landing page you improve your Google ad quality score.
When determining your quality score, Google looks at the relevance of your landing page (bounce rate etc.), to see if your offer is really valuable.
If a user clicks on your ad and gets to an irrelevant landing page, your quality score will plunge, your CPC will rise and you will pay more per conversion.
Make sure your landing page matches your ads, or be penalized by Google.
6. Don’t Forget the Power of Google Seller Ratings
Google Seller Ratings stars are a major CTR booster. They show star ratings of businesses to customers who are searching for specific items.
This means that they target the customer when they’re ripe to purchase: they know what they want, and they’re just comparing which is the best place to buy it from.
Stars have an enormous influence on customers’ behavior and purchasing decisions, and when customers are searching, you need to use everything you have to convert.
Not only do they draw the viewers’ eye and immediately communicate trustworthiness and quality, but when everyone has them, not having them might shed a negative light on your ad.
To get Google Seller Ratings stars, you first need to collect reviews from your shoppers. These reviews can boost your results from Google searches as well as improve your overall SEO.
7. Convey a Sense of Urgency through Shortage
You’ve probably heard of the famous study in which people were presented with two jars of cookies.
One jar had 10 cookies and the other one had just two.
The participants were asked to rate the cookies.
Even though all the cookies in all the jars were identical, the cookies from the less-full jar were rated twice as high as the cookies from the fuller jar.
This shows that when people think there is less of something, they want it more. It explains why stores who display “Only 8 left at this price!” or other shortage indicators, get more sales.
Adding a sense of shortage or urgency (“Just 5 minutes left for this sale!”) will accelerate conversion rates and CTRs.
8. Include Testimonials or Any Other Social Proof
Social proof is a good way to get people to make a certain decision faster. In a 1998 experiment, David B. Wooten showed that when deciding whether to buy a certain product, people base their decision on other people’s rating of that product.
By adding testimonials or other social proof to your ads, you can easily show potential buyers that others’ opinions of your product are positive.
Conclusion
With these tips, you can take an average ad and make it amazing. Just remember to test consistently.
Have any questions about advertising? Ask me anything in the comments below.
Originally published at blog.yotpo.com on October 27, 2015.
