Do you want to increase your click through rate (CTR) on your paid search ads? Most advertisers do as long as they are targeted clicks and not as a result of some stupid gimmick or lie. CTR plays an ever more important role in PPC campaign management. With the introduction of quality score, relevancy checking and focus on the customer experience, CTR is a very important PPC metric to optimize. Raising your paid search ads CTR can be a lot easier than you think. We have developed a simple chart that makes creating text ads for PPC search engines using combinations of “strong words” and equally strong calls to action.
| “Strong” Words | Strong Calls to Action |
| New | Book Now |
| Guaranteed | Reserve |
| Discover | Save Now |
| Save | Discover Your |
| Proven | Sign Up Today |
| Safe | Buy Now |
| Easy | Pay Less |
| Free | Order Now |
Your call to action is probably the most important of your ad text. The calls to action in the above chart are based on recent research done by Microsoft. Another important reason to use a strong call to action in Google Ads is because Google tells us we should. We have also done some research that will be published shortly that not having a call to action in your ad text can cause your initial quality score to suffer.
Let’s take a closer look at the “Strong” words and see what sort of emotion they evoke and how you can generate a strong feeling to encourage a user to click your ad through to your site and how that feeling generated can ultimately effect your conversion rate.
1. New
Your potential customer either has your product or service already or doesn’t. If you have a new version, it’s bound to be better right? “A ’99 Audi A4”? , “Our Service”? or “The New Audi A4”? “Our New Service”? Which sounds stronger to you? Say it out loud. Hear the difference?
2. Guaranteed
In todays modern e-commerce world, everyone wants to make the right decision and minimize risk. Your potential customers want to be sure that what you offer will minimize their risk. Make sure that’s in the back of their mind BEFORE they come to your site.
3. Discover
The word “discover” evokes a feeling of being first to find something. With paid search, your potential customers want to feel like they are among the first to find your product or service.
4. Save
Most people want to save something. Save a life, save all the trouble, save MONEY. Your potential customers are no different. Let them know they are saving before they come to your site.
5. Proven
You wouldn’t want to be a guinea pig for a new pharmaceutical product would you? Your customers don’t want to be for your product either. Again, this word removes another element of risk.
6. Safe
Everyone needs to feel safe. Especially when purchasing online, giving out personal information or using a product or service (especially on their children). Your potential customers will want to feel safe with your product or service. Make sure they feel it before they get to your site.
7. Easy
Who doesn’t want their life made a little easier? Your potential customers want to know that buying from you will make their lives easier than if they buy from your competitor. Easy can be applied to many areas of your fulfillment. (Easy shipping, easy ordering, easy clean product, easy peasy!)
8. Free
Probably the most powerful of them all. Who doesn’t want a free lunch, a free wad of cash, free shipping, free anything. Everyone wants something for free. It’s in our blood. If you offer something for free, make sure people know about it. Use it as your unique selling proposition.
Now, using these “strong” words and the chart above, we can simply pick an appropriate word for our product on the left and pair it up with an appropriate strong call to action on the right to help us create a powerful ad. Let’s use an example of a product called the “IPOD Touch”.
| “Strong” Words | Strong Calls to Action |
| New | Book Now |
| Guaranteed | Reserve |
| Discover | Save Now |
| Save | Discover Your |
| Proven | Sign Up Today |
| Safe | Buy Now |
| Easy | Pay Less |
| Free | Order Now |
If we use the strong word “Guaranteed” along with our chosen call to action “Order Now” we can see from the actual example below how dramatically our CTR can increase:
Winning AdApple Ipod Touch
|
Your Winning Ad is Outperforming the Losing Ad
> 95% Your Potential CTR Gain = 225% |
Losing AdApple Ipod Touch
|
Try it yourself. Add your own strong emotional words and industry specific calls to action to your own chart and when creating your ads, simply match one column up with the other. The world of PPC marketing is no longer the plaything of the elite online marketing pioneers. You need to make your ad stand out and be clicked. Of course, you could always visit the Apple site direct.