6 Ways to Target Early-Stage Buyers in PPC

It’s no secret that the better you can use your keywords to target your ideal user, the more success you’re going to have in PPC.

But, let’s take a moment to discuss the nuances of what the term “ideal user” can mean.

When you think of your “ideal user” you are probably thinking of sales qualified leads, or SQLs, that are ready to sign up for your service or purchase your product. The further down the sales funnel, the better.

Well, the truth is, the most successful paid search analysts don’t consider their “ideal user” to be the same in each and every campaign they manage. The best paid campaigns are those that are streamlined and targeted to specific and discrete touch-points within the conversion path – perfectly synchronized for success.

Instead of building all of your paid campaigns around your most profitable keywords, and focusing all of your time/energy trying to convert your sales qualified leads, maybe it’s time you focus your optimization efforts elsewhere.

Success in 2017 is going to come from working smarter, not harder. Start building your campaigns and ad groups for early-stage buyers as well as SQLs, and learn to target the different search contexts of your individual campaigns using tools like Answer the Public.

Here’s how.

1. Targeting Early-Stage Queries for Early-Stage Buyers

So what is the difference between an SQL searching for “construction management software” and an early-stage buyer typing the same query into the search bar?

The answer is simple – what makes them different are the questions they are asking (and the benefits they are looking for when they land on your page).

Try to step into the shoes of the different users who might land on your page. Or, better yet, look at the actual questions they are typing into the search bar to find you.

Plugging Product/Service Keywords into Answer the Public

Answer the Public is a great tool for advanced keyword research because it delivers keywords in the form of questions, revealing what kind of help your prospects are looking for.

Not only that, it prioritizes them around the primary interrogative terms: “who, what, when, where, why, how,” with search volume to boot!

You can comb through the different diagrams (or lists if you prefer the linear presentation option) and start to identify the questions that different stage buyers are asking.

For example, first time preliminary research users might ask questions like:

• What is construction management software?
• Why use construction management software?

While more sales qualified leads, lower down your funnel, would ask questions like:

• Where to purchase construction management software?
• Construction management software for sub contractors
• Which construction software is the most compatible with…?

Once you’ve identified the different questions you can use to target early-stage buyers as opposed to SQLs, you can start building new campaigns with ad groups built around early-stage keywords.

This will include writing (or rewriting) landing page copy to directly answer questions with more preliminary benefits and drive cooler, lower-friction conversions.

If you really want to supercharge how you target your keywords, you can combine a host of different keyword tools like SEMRush, Moz, Answer the Public, and LongTail Pro to pin down search context, intent, ranking, and page priority as well. (Check out Directive’s Action Item Episode 1 to learn how how to supercharge your keyword research with these tools.)

But, for now, we’re focused on early-stage buyers.

So, having identified what questions they are typing into the search bar, let’s look at what Google is showing your users in suggested search.

2. Identifying Search Context with “the Wildcard”

The Wildcard is a trick you can use to identify what Google is showing users in suggested search.

It’s really just an underscore ( _ ) typed into the search bar either before or after the keyword you are researching.

As you can see in the images above, the wildcard will show you the top three suggested searches that Google provides users when they type in the given keyword.

This is a really helpful tool because other tools like Moz Keyword Explorer often have “no search volume” for these modified search queries.

But, as the wildcard shows, there is search volume for those modifications.

You can build targeted ad groups around these modifications as well to really broaden the top of your sales funnel. The more early-stage buyers you can convert into top-of-the-funnel leads, the wider your pipeline is going to be.

(Of course filling up that pipeline up is going to take some leg work of its own, but that’s a post for another day.)

3. Building SKAGs Around User Queries

KlientBoost’s CEO Jonathan Dane says it best: “You don’t have to be an AdWords lover to understand the value of slicing up your AdWords account in a more granular way, to make it more manageable, and, to have it perform much better.”

He said this in his post “19 Reasons Why Single Keyword Ad Groups Always Win.”

And again, the reason behind their success is rather straightforward. The more granular control you have over discrete, targeted campaigns, the more effective each campaign will be.

So, instead of dumping somewhat relevant keywords into a single ad group with dynamic keyword insertion in the headlines, build out single keyword ad groups (SKAGs) that unlock the ability to match words and search intention throughout your ad, ad extensions, sitelink extensions, landing page, and CTA.

Setting Up SKAGs with Product/Service Keywords

Consider the following – an early-stage searcher types a keyword into the search bar and finds your ad. That ad your user is viewing is built from a dynamic keyword insertion ad campaign, originally built for “construction management software” but including the related search term “construction management services.”

Because they searched for the latter, the ad is now showing that user your ad copy for your “services” and not the software you are trying to market as a SaaS business.

And because you are using a dynamic text insertion setup, your headline term “software” is now being replaced with “services,” and your user has no idea you are marketing an actual purchasable product to streamline their business.

Didn’t work quite as well as you’d hoped, did it?

Now let’s look at the same search interaction, streamlined through a SKAG ad instead.

The user searches “construction management services,” for which you have built out the following unique and discrete ad campaign features:

• SKAG built around the early-stage search term “construction management services”
• Unique ad that targets the “construction management services” search context (that specific long-tail keyword)
• Nuanced ad copy that connects “services” to “software”
• A well-built landing page that relates your different “software services”
• A singular conversion goal, ideally for a cooler lead, that will bring them back to your domain searching in a more educated context, looking for “software” in the future 

SKAGs also allow you to repeat those specific keyword instances through your headline, link, and ad description, where the keywords will be bolded to emphasize their relevance to the searcher. In DKIs, you are only addressing keyword usage in the headline.

Building out targeted and streamlined campaigns around SKAGs may take a bit more leg work, but the results are clear.

The more granular your control, the more effective your targeting efforts will be.

4. Increasing Your CTR with Benefits-Focused Ads

If you really want to improve the success of your ads, you can jam pack them with benefits instead of branding information.

This, as with most optimization efforts, will take into account the different stage buyers you are targeting in each of your SKAG campaigns.

By dropping your brand name from your headline, you free up space in your copy for enticing callouts to inspire more clicks.

For example, at Directive Consulting, we dropped our brand name from our ads and used callouts in parentheses.

Make sure that you target your different parenthetical “sneak-peaks” to the given user lead-level you are targeting. So, for an early-stage buyer that you are targeting with educational content, you might want to use one of the below examples of parenthetical callouts:

• (Check Out Our Reviews!)
• (Case Studies to Prove it!)
• (Trusted Throughout the Industry) 

But for a more conversion-ready user looking at a more SQL-oriented ad, you might try some of these:

• (Cheapest Prices Around!)
• (Comparison Pricing Models)
• (Shave 2 Hours off Implementation!)

5. Leveraging Sitelink Extensions and Mini Landing Pages

While we are on the topic of optimizing your use of space on the SERP – sitelink extensions are another huge optimization opportunity for your paid ads.

Sitelink Extensions are a great way to fit more of your service or product pages onto a single SERP result.

This way you don’t need to do all of the technical SEO leg work to get each individual page onto the SERP – you can capitalize on your already successful ad links and make the most of your page 1 real-estate instead.

However, an important rule to remember is that each discrete page within your sitelink extension needs to be at least 80% unique content and copy, which can make listing all of your best performing product pages difficult if they are all within the same sub menu of your product lists.

Taking the Next Step with Targeted Sitelink Extensions

This is where Answer the Public and knowing how to use the Wildcard can really come in handy.

If you can identify the different related products or services that the fringe of your traffic are looking for, you can beef up the sitelink extensions of your top service pages with the remaining top performers.

For example, Answer the Public shows us that when searching for “construction management” users are also looking for “software for builders,” “software for general contractors,” “managing sub contractors,” and more.

These are the search queries you can directly answer in your site extensions to pick up the fringes of your early-stage buyers interested in related services.

Essentially, these sitelinks will become a resource hub for early-stage buyers to view your most profitable product/service pages all in one ad on the SERP. All of your best pages all efficiently stacked for your information-hungry user.

On top of the increase in the quality of links you are providing the user, you can also get a heap of new data from these sitelinks. Tracking which of the links generates the most clicks, you can adjust your primary CTA to account for your most successful pages.

Each of these can be built around targeted SKAGs, within which you can then develop dynamic text replacement to really target each sub group of users.

Supercharge your supercharging – so to speak.

6. Using Low-Friction CTAs

Lastly, you should be sure to account for where in the conversion path your user is coming from in your CTAs as well.

An early-stage searcher will most likely be pushed away by high-friction forms that ask for tons of information.

Instead, start developing lower-friction, “cooler” form submissions that offer content to educate your users without scaring them away with high-friction contact information requests.

Offering (and emphasizing in the CTA) a free download with minimal form fields can really increase your click rate and submission rate.

More than that, offering free content can inspire return users and even get some of your lower-level leads volunteering to enter your pipeline to start the process of heating those suckers up!

The true golden nugget of optimizing wisdom is the same throughout every campaign and strategy: whenever in doubt, lean to the side of deeper, more aggressive targeting.

Before you know it you’ll be drowning in bullseyes.

About the Author

Sean Thomas Martin is the Growth Marketing Manager @ Directive Consulting, an industry thought leader based in Southern California, specializing in a unique blend of SEO, PPC, content, and social. 

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Does Dwell Time Really Matter for SEO? [Data]

What’s the real impact of machine learning on SEO? This has been one of the biggest debates within SEO over the last year.

I won’t lie: I’ve become a bit obsessed with machine learning. My theory is that RankBrain and/or other machine learning elements within Google’s core algorithm are increasingly rewarding pages with high user engagement.

Basically, Google wants to find unicorns – pages that have extraordinary user engagement metrics like organic search click-through rate (CTR), dwell time, bounce rate, and conversion rate – and reward that content with higher organic search rankings.

Happier, more engaged users means better search results, right?

So, essentially, machine learning is Google’s Unicorn Detector.

Machine Learning & Click-Through Rate

Many SEO experts and influencers have said that it’s totally impossible to find any evidence of Google RankBrain in the wild.

That’s ridiculous. You just need to run SEO experiments and be smarter about how you conduct those experiments.

That’s why, in the past, I ran an experiment that looked at CTR over time. I was hoping to find evidence of machine learning.

What I found: results that have higher organic search CTRs are getting pushed higher up the SERPs and getting more clicks:

 

Click-through rate is just one way to see the impact of machine learning algorithms. Today, let’s look at another important engagement metric: long clicks, or visits that stay on site for a long time after leaving the SERP.

Time on Site Acts as a Proxy for Long Clicks

Are you not convinced that long clicks impact organic search rankings (whether directly or indirectly)? Well, I’ve come up with a super easy way that you can prove to yourself that the long click matters – while also revealing the impact of machine learning algorithms.

In today’s experiment, we’re going to measure time on page. To be clear: time on page isn’t the same as dwell time or a long click (or, how long people stay on your website before they hit the back button to return to the search results from which they found you).

We can’t measure long clicks or dwell time in Google Analytics. Only Google has access to this data.

Time on page really doesn’t matter to us. We’re only looking at time on page because it is very likely proportional to those metrics.

Time on Site & Organic Traffic (Before RankBrain)

To get started, go into your analytics account. Pick a time frame before the new algorithms were in play (i.e., 2015).

Segment your content report to view only your organic traffic, and then sort by pageviews. Then you want to run a Comparison Analysis that compares your pageviews to average time on page.

You’ll see something like this:

Click image to enlarge

These 32 pages drove our most organic traffic in 2015. Time on site is above average for about two-thirds of these pages, but it’s below average for the remaining third.

See all those red arrows? Those are donkeys – pages that were ranking well in organic search, but in all honestly probably had no business ranking well, at least for the search queries that were driving the most traffic. They were out of their league. Time on page was half or a third of the site average.

Time on Site & Organic Traffic (After RankBrain)

Now let’s do the same analysis. But we’re going to use a more recent time period when we know Google’s machine learning algorithms were in use (e.g., the last three or four months).

Do the same comparison analysis. You’ll see something like this:

Click image to enlarge

Look at what happens now when we analyze the organic traffic. All but two of our top pages have above average time on page.

This is kind of amazing to see. So what’s happening?

Does Longer Dwell Time = Higher Search Rankings?

It seems that Google’s machine learning algorithms have seen through all those pages that used to rank well in 2015, but really didn’t deserve to be ranking well. And, to me, it certainly looks like Google is rewarding higher dwell time with more prominent search positions.

Google detected most of the donkeys (about 80 percent of them!) and now nearly all the pages with the most organic traffic are time-on-site unicorns.

I won’t tell you which pages on the WordStream site those donkeys are, but I will tell you that some of those pages were created simply to bring in traffic (mission: successful), and the alignment with search intent wasn’t great. Probably someone created a page that matched the intent better.

In fact, here’s one example: Our AdWords Grader used to rank on page 1 for the query “google adwords” (which has huge search volume – over 300,000 searches a month!). The intent match there is low – most people who search for that phrase are just using it as a navigational keyword, to get to the AdWords site. A small percentage of those searchers might just want to know more about Google AdWords and what it is, kind of using Google as a way to find a Wikipedia page. There’s no indication from the query that they might be looking for a tool to help them diagnose AdWords problems. And guess what? In 2015, the Grader page was one of those top 30 pages, but it had below average time on site.

So at some point, Google tested a different result in place of the Grader – our infographic about how Google AdWords works. It’s still ranking on page 1 for that search query, and it matches the informational intent of the keyword much better.

A Few Caveats on the Data

To be clear, I know these analytics reports don’t directly show a loss in rankings. There are other potential explanations for the differences in the reports – maybe we created lots of new, super-awesome content that’s ranking for higher-volume keywords and they simply displaced the time-on-site “donkeys” from 2015. Further, there are certain types of pages that might have low time on site for a perfectly acceptable reason (for example, they might provide the info the user wants very quickly).

But internally, we know for sure that a few of our pages that had below average time on site have fallen in the rankings (again, at least for certain keywords) in the past couple of years.

And regardless, it’s very compelling to see that the pages that are driving the most organic traffic overall (the WordStream site has thousands of pages) have way above average time on site. It strongly suggests that pages with excellent, unicorn-level engagement metrics are going to be the most valuable to your business overall.

This report also revealed something ridiculously important for us: the pages with below average time on site are our most vulnerable pages in terms of SEO. In other words, those two remaining pages in the second chart above that still have below average time on site are the ones that are most likely to lose organic rankings and traffic in the new machine learning world.

What’s so great about this report is you don’t have to do a lot of research or hire an SEO to do an extensive audit. Just open up your analytics and look at the data yourself. You should be able to compare changes from a long time ago to recent history (the last three or four months).

What Does It All Mean?

This report is basically your donkey detector. It will show you the content that could be most vulnerable for future incremental traffic and search rankings losses from Google.

That’s how machine learning works. Machine learning doesn’t eliminate all your traffic overnight (like a Panda or Penguin). It’s gradual.

What should you do if you have a lot of donkey content?

Prioritize the pages that are most at risk – those that are below average or near average. If there’s not a really good reason for those pages to have below average time on site, put these at top of your list for rewriting or fixing up so they align better with user intent.

Now go look at your own data and see if you agree that time-on-site plays a role in your organic search rankings.

Don’t just take my word for it. Go look run your own reports and let me know what you find.

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Easy Marketing Investments to Improve Your E-Commerce Store

Posted by KaneJamison

At least once or twice per month, I talk to a small e-commerce store owner who wants to invest in content marketing. Often times, I have to break it to them that they’re not ready for content marketing.

You see, before you spend a bunch of time generating traffic from your target audience, it’s important to make sure those visitors get the best experience possible while browsing your store.

So, in this post, I want to give store owners and e-commerce newbies a clear idea of where they can invest their time before investing in more paid and organic traffic to their sites. Many of these can be accomplished for less than $1,000 or a few hours of your time.

With a few small-scale investments you can help drive performance on conversions, SEO, and more.

So what are they?

1. Rewrite Your Weak Product Descriptions
2. Take Better Product Photography
3. Build Lookbooks & Product Collections
4. Start Adding Product Videos
5. Upgrade Your Review Software & Process

Let’s look at these opportunities in detail, and better yet, show you some actual examples of what your site could look like.

Rewrite your weak product descriptions

From product details to features and benefits, product descriptions must pack a lot of information in a short format. You may have overlooked some missed opportunities.

If you answer “yes” to any of the following questions, consider investing in improved product descriptions.

1 – Does your current product page copy speak only to your ideal customer?

If you’ve built buyer personas for your brand, make sure the copy addresses the appropriate persona’s unique pain points and concerns. Bland descriptions meant to appeal to everyone — or just bots — aren’t as effective.

This high chair example from 4moms.com focuses on the three things that matter to their audience: single-handed adjustments, spilt-food prevention, and easy cleanup.

2 – Does your copy focus on benefits rather than features?

You can list features all day long, but customers really want to know how your product will make their life better.

The Amazon Echo sales page does a great job of focusing less on the technical features of the product, and more on the cool things you can do with it.

3 – Are you describing your product with the same words that your customers use?

Using the same language that your customers do will help you better communicate with your target audience in a way that sounds natural for them and touches on their pain points.

A simple way to find these words is to do some reverse engineering. Start by looking at customer reviews and feedback you’ve collected (and those of your main competitors as well) to pick out common words and phrases that satisfied customers are using. From here, you can tie that customer language back into your own descriptions.

I was shopping for a new tent last week and saw this awesome reviewer on Amazon drive home a point that the copywriters had missed. If you read that entire review, the phrase “family tent” is mentioned about 13 times.

But if you read the product description, “family tent” only shows up once. The description fails to mention many of the benefits covered by the reviewer: lots of pockets, sleeping arrangements, ability to catch a breeze but keep the doors closed, etc.

There’s an opportunity here for a competitor in the tent or outdoor space to improve their own product descriptions for the same tent (or even put together a larger guide to family tents).

4 – Are you telling your product’s story?

The folks over at Rogue Brewing understand that the people buying gifts from their website are probably passionate about well-made products, not just well-made beer. Here’s a great example from their site that tells the story of their 28-year search for a decent beer shucker (bottle opener):

Take better product photography

Photography matters. Research from BigCommerce suggests that 67% of consumers consider image quality “very important” when making a purchase online.

Good product photos do more than just show shoppers what you’re selling — they provide context and help customers visualize using your products. Plus, high-quality photos will reduce product returns that happen due to misleading images.

So what can you do to upgrade your product photos?

Smartphones aren’t going to cut it

Use a DSLR camera, not your smartphone. Although modern smartphone cameras can take higher resolution photos than ever before, you’ll get better results from a DSLR. Lower-end models start at around $500 — try finding a used body online and spending more money on a better & cost-effective fixed lens that can handle video, too.

Build a cheap lightbox

Create a lightbox for well-lit photos with a solid white background. For less than $10, you can build your own lightbox that will vastly improve the quality of your product images.

Use creative angles

Shoot products from multiple angles. Be sure to include several images on every product page. The more perspectives and viewpoints you have, the better customers will be able to judge your product.

It’s OK to tweak & process your images to make them pop

Process your images with filters that enhance color and overall image quality. Photo filters resolve poor lighting or color issues and vastly improve your product photos. Just try not to get carried away with dramatic filters that distort the color of your products, as this can be misleading for the buyer. Here’s a good example from ABeautifulMess.com showing the difference before and after image edits:

If you don’t have time or the inclination to take your own photography, outsource it to a professional. No matter what route you go, know that upgrading your product page photography is well worth the investment.

Build lookbooks & product collections

You can also provide more context for your products through lookbooks, which showcase your products in use. The term “lookbook” is mostly common in the fashion industry, but the concept can be extended to a variety of industries.

The photos in the lookbook for Fitbit’s Alta model of fitness tracker help shoppers envision themselves wearing them. Fitbit’s lookbook also establishes a brand lifestyle promise — impossible with product photos alone. Even better? The various photos are clickable and take you to the product page for that color/style of wristband:

Product collections are another great variation on this strategy. In this “Mediterranean Collection” page on Coastal.com, shoppers get an opportunity to shop by “style,” and to see examples of the glasses on actual faces instead of just a white background:

As I alluded to before, this isn’t just an opportunity for fashion sites. The trick is to make sure you’re showing your products in action.

Plenty of other retailers have an opportunity to show off their product in use, like these photos from the Klipsch website showing off their soundbars in various settings:

Car accessories? Same thing.

Heck, even office furniture is easier to purchase when you see how it looks in a workspace.

Start adding product videos

Adding video to product pages is another relatively low-budget improvement you can make, yet it has extreme value for shoppers and your bottom line.

Why? Because video’s ability to quickly educate shoppers is a powerful conversion tool. Eyeview Digital reported that including video on landing pages can improve conversions by as much as 80%, and ComScore indicated that online shoppers are 64% more likely to buy after watching a video.

So how can you put video to work on your product pages?

Whether you’re demonstrating a how-to or simply showcasing a product and outlining product details, adding video on your product pages provides a whole new experience for online shoppers that helps overcome purchase objections and answers their questions.

Video also allows you to give shoppers a more complete overview of the product and to go beyond static pictures with a story element. These engaging visuals can help shoppers envision themselves using your products in a way that photography alone simply can’t.

Zappos is well known for including videos on what seems like every listing, but what’s more impressive to me is how much personality and brand voice they show off. While shopping for boots recently, I have to say Joe was my favorite video personality:

Click image to open product video in a new window.

If you’re up for taking this on with a DIY approach, it’s reasonably easy to create your own product videos at home with the right equipment. Or, outsource this project to a local professional or videographer for hire.

Upgrade your customer reviews software & process

In the current e-commerce landscape, competition is fierce — and there’s always someone willing to deliver cheaper and faster.

That’s why social proof is more important than ever before. Research from eConsultancy shows that 61% of consumers indicate they look to product reviews before making a purchase, and that product reviews are 12x more trusted than product descriptions from companies.

Customer reviews make your product pages more effective, allowing shoppers to evaluate the product based on real customer opinions — and can help you spot product issues.

I’m listing a few common platforms here, but you should really check out Everett Sizemore’s guide to product review software, which has some great insights on the performance of the entire marketplace of product review software options, including technical SEO concerns:

• BazaarVoice
• Yotpo
• Trustpilot
• PowerReviews

Traditional product reviews may not be right for all stores…

The best option for you will depend on the tool’s ability to integrate with your store, your preferred functionality, and your budget. Sometimes, traditional product reviews won’t be the best choice for your product or store.

In this example from ThinkGeek, they’ve opted to just let people leave Facebook comments rather than any product reviews at all. Which makes sense, because they’re Star Trek garden gnomes, and it’s not like you need to tell people whether they were the right size or not. Even better than Facebook comments, they also solicit product photos via social media on their #geekfamous hashtag.

Here’s another example where my favorite wallet company, SlimFold, simply highlights great product reviews that they received from press and customer emails. While it makes it harder for them to solicit new reviews, they only have a handful of products, and this format allows them to put more emphasis on specific reviews.

There are many different tools that will allow you to showcase elements of social proof like ratings and reviews, so take your time carefully reviewing different options to see which is the best fit for your needs and budget, and if normal product reviews aren’t the right fit, feel free to take a different approach.

Make enough of these small investments and you should see big improvements over the long term.

Tackling these small investments — as your schedule and budget allows — will dramatically improve the overall user experience and the effectiveness of your e-commerce store.

Consider which aspects are the most important to complete first, and then start doing your research and put together a strategy for how you’ll prioritize these site upgrades. With a well-thought-out plan of action, you can focus on the projects that will drive the best results for your business, rather than trying too many different tactics all at once.

Looking for more ideas? Take a look at our guides on product page optimization, category page optimization, and conversion rate improvements for e-commerce.

This is by no means the complete guide to investing in your e-commerce store, so in the discussion below, I’d like to hear from you. What creative ways have you improved your e-commerce site content in the past that boosted conversions or organic search?

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The Secrets of AdWords CTR in 5 Charts

Click-through rate (CTR) is arguably the most important metric in paid search (organic, too, for that matter). It’s a key component in determining Quality Score. It’s indicative of copy that entices prospects to visit your landing pages.

It. Matters.

A lot.

Consumers click on exceptional ads, ads that address their needs or make an emotional appeal, and gloss over bad (or even fine) ones. And while it’s possible that too many clicks can flood your landing pages with un- and under-qualified traffic, if you’re optimizing your landing pages and running remarketing campaigns, the benefits of a high CTR are clear.

Of course, exceptional landing pages and all-encompassing remarketing efforts mean nothing if you aren’t driving a steady flow of traffic to your site, and to do that, you need great ads. What’s the indicator of mind-melting ad copy? CTR.

Given the importance of click-through rate, let’s explore AdWords CTR (in graphs!).

1. What did CTR look like in 2016?

According to our data, beautiful. Radiant. Dare I say it: unicorn-y.

 

In 2016, the average SMB account ad CTR across all positions was 3.23%, up from 2.7% just a year earlier. Why the improvement?

According to Larry, the biggest reasons for the increase in CTR are Google’s inherent preference for good ads, an aversion to running “crappy ads (with low CTR and low QS) in the first place,” and the advent of Expanded Text Ads (more on those in a minute). “There’s tremendous leverage in ad text optimization. The top 10% of accounts (the unicorns) are doing more than 3X better than everyone else (the donkeys).”  In other words, a high CTR is a clear indicator of success.

This is especially interesting when you consider that…

2. Many industries have average CTR’s below the 50th percentile

That’s right. According to our industry benchmarks, a CTR of 3.23% would be a welcome sight in the AdWords UI of almost any advertiser.

 

Of the 16 verticals included in our research, only one, dating and personals, had an industry-average CTR above the 50th percentile. While this is cause for matchmakers to rejoice, it also means the majority of advertisers aren’t writing the right ads.

How can you ensure your copy’s optimized for above-average CTR’s?

The first step is rather simple…

3. WRITE EXPANDED TEXT ADS

Shocking, I know.

As we’ve mentioned ad nauseum since mid-2015, Expanded Text Ads are upon us (and they’re awesome).

The format, in which two 30-character headlines are featured prominently atop a larger description line, gives you more room to say something compelling.

As you can see, we recorded some insane increases in CTR across WordStream clients who were early adopters of ETA’s; in some cases, the improvements over standard text ads climbed well over 100%. If that doesn’t convince you to make the jump over to ETA, I don’t know what will!

Just kidding. I’m keenly aware of the hurdle 45% more space in your text ads represents. Boosting CTR’s is great, but, frankly, ETA’s can be a pain in the ass to write.

Case in point: in our own AdWords account, we actually saw click-through rates dip when we first introduced ETA’s. Why? Simply put, we attempted to mash old (high performing) ads together, creating an account overflowing with “irresistible” Frankenstein copy. (For more examples of what not to do, check out the 7 Deadly Sins of Expanded Text Ads).

Our strategy proved wholly invalid within a week. We reverted back to our top performing standard ads, and the brains behind our in-house PPC efforts rolled up their sleeves and started cranking out brand new copy tailored to the new, expanded format.

Now, we’ve got enough ETA-related resources on our blog to turn you into a PPC copywriting pro. But if you don’t have time to dig in right this second, the next two graphics will show you how simple tactics can lead to massive gains in CTR.

4. Bidding on long tail keywords? Include every syllable in your ad copy

Bidding on long-tail keywords is smart, right? Longer keyword, less competition, more obvious intent.

Great.

With standard text ads, it was likely that your long-tail keywords didn’t fit neatly into your copy. They were probably a hair too long to be featured in headlines, and if you managed to work them into a description line they either a) detracted from your ability to include an enticing value proposition/CTA or b) created a painfully awkward line break.

This was a real shame, since long-tail keywords are proven to produce better CTR’s than one-, two-, three-, and four-word keywords, regardless of position.

As you can see in this graph, the more words in the search term, the higher the CTR. And with Expanded Text Ads space is no longer a constraint!

By adding an additional headline, Google has given you the ability to include a long-tail keyword and a call to action within your headline. Realistically, most searchers are going to skim headlines because they’re in bold; many might never see your description line copy. While this is a tidbit disheartening, it provides insight into how one might structure an effective Expanded Text Ad.

That being said, if you’ve got your keywords and a CTA in your headlines, what on Earth should you do with your description line? How do you ensure that your hyper-relevant, long-tail keyword-packed ad copy resonates with your prospects?

5. Fill your copy with powerful emotional triggers

Leveraging the power of human emotion in ads is a tried and true copywriting tactic.

But just how powerful is it?

 

In a word: very.

In a study conducted by one of our PPC Strategists, it was determined that ad copy that combined a promotion with some form of flattery improved CTR by 29%. Only including the promotion or the aspect of flattery alone didn’t move the needle as much as combing the two!

And this study was based on standard text ads: imagine the ways you can weave emotive copy within an Expanded Text Ad! You’ll never have to settle for “Buy now!” again…

Data Sources

1. Data is based on 30,000 reports from advertisers who ran WordStream’s AdWords Performance Grader for the first time in the last six months. We focused on small and medium-sized businesses with average spend between $10 and $5000 per month, with accounts world-wide. (Source)
2. Data is based on a sample of 2,367 US-based WordStream client accounts in all verticals (representing $34.4 million in aggregate AdWords spend) who were advertising on Google AdWords’ Search and Display networks in Q2 2015. “Averages” are technically median figures to account for outliers. All currency values are posted in USD. (Source)
3. Data is based on a sample size of 11 accounts (WordStream clients) using Expanded Text Ads on the Google Search Network in June 2016. (Source)
4. Data is based on 1,000 keywords in the same keyword niche (to isolate external factors like Google shopping and other SERP features that can alter CTR characteristics). The keywords are all from wordstream.com. (Source)
5. Data is based on an ad experiment conducted in a single account.  (Source)

About the Author

Allen Finn is a content marketing specialist and the reigning fantasy football champion at WordStream. He enjoys couth menswear, dank eats, and the dulcet tones of the Wu-Tang Clan. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll follow him on LinkedIn and Twitter.

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