MarketingExperiments Blog: Research-driven optimization, testing, and marketing ideas

The thing about pay-per-click ads is … well, you’re paying for every click.

So how do you maximize the value you get out of this online advertising?

In this Wednesday’s Web clinic – Online Advertising Forensics: We investigate how and why a text-based PPC ad produced 47% more conversions – MECLABS Managing Director Flint McGlaughlin will share our top discoveries on increasing the ROI of your PPC ads.

First, let’s look at some top advice we received from your peers …

Always run two ads

Whenever I create a new campaign or a single group, I always run with two ads. I run with words that I think will generate interest and flow into the landing page that I create. I generally start with two similar ads but, every now and again, I will try an ad that is not similar at all just to see what the market likes and dislikes.

Sometimes I look at the competitive nature of the keyword in the search results, and then look at who is in first place, then try to match my words to the similar ones.

This all depends on if I have worked in this area or not … if I know the targeted niche, I stick with what I know has worked in the past.

When creating the ad groups, I will use a small number of keywords and nine out of 10 times use these keywords in the title of the AdWords ad itself. Now that Google doesn’t allow capitals in the URLs, I have started using the URLs with capitals in the body content on the AdWords ad, this has definitely helped keep the CTRs higher.

Say, for example, I am selling Organic Cat Food … and own the URL … I will paste this URL with caps between the words in the second line of the AdWords ad …

For example:

Your Cat Loves This?
www.OrganicCatFood.com
Freshly Made & Delivered For Free
organiccatfood.com/LoveCats

You also must consider not just clicks but conversions.

As I said, always have two ads running for the same ad group.

Set the account to rotate your ads evenly so that you can see what ad converts higher or has higher clickthrough.

You may have an ad that has high clicks but small conversions compared with an ad that has lower clicks but higher conversions. This is important to measure. It may mean that your ad, even though it is generating great clicks, is not returning the conversions. So instead of just changing your ad content, have another look at what keywords are converting and refine if necessary to ensure your quality of visitor is high.

After you have made these tweaks, test again for another period and then measure the success of the two ads running for this group.

Having the correct keywords is as important as having the two sample ads running. Keep testing and adjusting to fine-tune your account.

– Dave Lemmon, Director, Redcow Marketing Limited

3 key factors to PPC success

1. As far as performance of ads is concerned, A/B tests are the best way to check and optimize. Run different variations of images, text and calls-to-action to zero in on what is getting the best response. Study the ad analytics well because optimizing ads is a continuous process as long as your campaign is running.

2. Targeting is the key to PPC Campaigns. Have a clearly defined audience, and design ads according to their preferences. Engage directly with your prospects – don’t show your ad to people who don’t need to see it. Online advertising has this huge advantage over traditional print and TV – so make use of it.

3. Never forget the bigger picture – landing pages and conversions. The objective of an ad campaign is not to just “drive traffic” to a particular webpage but to secure business from it. To assure you are getting value or a good ROI out of online advertising, have a well-designed landing page to make sure that a decent conversion rate is in place, or else, the campaign is just wasting dollars.

– Nivesh Jain, Senior Marketing Executive, Invensis Technologies Pvt Ltd

Get everyone involved

Here’s sort of a “different” answer …

I have my co-workers write ads to test. I give them the parameters and the ammunition (landing pages, features, benefits and other good stuff for ads) and run a little contest with a prize for the winner.

What’s the point? Many times “professionals” and those closely associated with marketing can get too “markety.” We start using fancy words and lose sight that there’s a real person searching with questions they want answered.

Getting others involved that don’t know so much about the campaign can lead to some great ads as they use different language and come at the problem and solution from different angles. Plus, it’s a lot of fun!

Don’t get caught thinking that these ads can’t be winners. You might be surprised!

– Mike Fleming, PPC and Analytics Manager, Pole Position Marketing

Great minds think alike, Mike! Right now, we’re running our own PPC ad writing contest right here on the blog, because, as you suggest, we too think it is critical to case a wide net. The winner receives a free PDF copy of MarketingSherpa’s 2012 Search Marketing Benchmark Report – PPC Edition (a $397 value).

Related Resources:

Online Advertising Forensics: We investigate how and why a text-based PPC ad produced 47% more conversions – Free Web clinic, Wednesday, February 1, 2012, 4:00 – 5:00 p.m. EST

PPC Ad Writing Contest: Win a $397 Benchmark Report while building your optimization peer group

This Just Tested: How PPC specificity drove 21% more clicks and cut costs 66%

Converting PPC Traffic: How clarifying value generated 99.4% more conversions on a PPC landing page

PPC Advertising: 5 winning display ad tactics that increased paying customers by 2,900% and dropped cost-per-lead 37%

Recently, I sat in on what I like to call a “meeting of the minds” – where the research team in our lab sits down to discuss their ongoing research in online marketing, and optimizes pages together. Here in the labs, we call this a Peer Review Session. So, I took notes to share their advice with you and make you feel as if you were right there with us.

While there was a lot of helpful content being discussed, I decided to share their optimization suggestions for a landing page that I got to present to them, thanks to the help of the Director of Editorial Content, Daniel Burstein. The page was from the CBS Sports Web site, and it had to do with their Fantasy Football league (I play in the ESPN league, by the way). Yea, yea. I know, the 2010 NFL season ended a couple of weeks ago, but this advice will last forever (was that too much?)

Because, while CBS Sports submitted this page for live optimization during a Web clinic about homepage optimization several months ago while football was actually in season, we thought it might be more interesting to provide optimization suggestions for what they do in the off season.

After all, many marketers have a product that has an on and off cycle. I wondered what optimization and testing ideas our researchers would have for an off-cycle product page.

Here’s the page they reviewed:

Click to enlarge

THE GOOD

Before I go on and show you what the team (pun intended) felt this page was doing wrong, let me tell you what they did think it did right.

This page is making a push for the upcoming fantasy football season, even though the 2011 NFL season is months away (and may not even happen because of a potential lockout). When we looked at their competitors’ respective fantasy football league pages, they were either static or had no option to start planning next season’s registration early (even my beloved, ESPN league was guilty of this…Tisk, tisk).

Research Manager, Jon Powell, noted that at least CBS Sports had an interactive page and was giving potential players a reason to get engaged early and maybe even play ball (another very intended pun). The fact that they’re starting a conversation could give them a slight edge over competitors who are probably waiting for the season to get closer before making a move.

So ask yourself, if you have an off cycle product, what landing page is currently awaiting your off-cycle traffic? Are you just showing them that the last event closed? Or offering up a reason to join you for the next, future event.

THE BAD

And now, what you’ve been waiting for, the bad.

This page is a bit confusing. The problem is, it has no focus. It has two calls-to-action, making the page “conflated,” according to Jon.

On one section it’s asking you to put in your email address to get notified about next season’s launch, meanwhile, in the other it’s asking you to start a free trial. Another thing Research Analyst, Dustin Eichholt, pointed out was that the calls-to-action were flip flopped.” “Why are they asking for an email and then selling you the product?”

Exactly! A person is not going to just put in their email address all wily nilly, especially if they don’t understand what they’re being offered in the first place.

THE SOLUTION (WHICH ISN’T UGLY AT ALL)

Step 1: Focus on one main objective

So, in a unanimous decision, everyone agreed that the page needed to be focused on one main objective. The research team’s suggestion was to get rid of the section that asked you to start a free trial and remove pricing all together.

But wait! You might be asking yourself, “isn’t the objective to sell a product?” Yes! But, you can’t sell something without first starting a conversation with the visitor and showing them why it’s valuable to them. The objective here should be to start up an email nurturing campaign. Especially, considering this page is trying to pre-sell.

So, CBS Sports has more than enough time to get the potential gamer interested by showing them over time why they’re the best fantasy football option for them. You show them price in the emails. But, I won’t go into depth with that, because we’re still trying to optimize the landing page and get people interested. Email campaign stuff comes after engaging the visitor.

Step 2: Find the differentiator

So, now that we have a clear objective, what’s the next step? Senior Director of Sciences, Bob Kemper, said they needed to express their value proposition, which is essential in online marketing. Clearly show the audience the value of the product through a quantifiable statement.

Your value proposition should be you conversation starter and show the visitor what makes your product their best option. This is especially important for CBS Sports’ fantasy football league, the only online fantasy football league that isn’t free (according to our limited research of visiting three sites)!

So, they need to really express the “differentiator” as Bob said during the meeting. Senior Optimization Manager, Adam Lapp, (who happens to play fantasy football using CBS Sports) mentioned they had some great features, which they had buried all the way at the bottom of the page – where the free trial section is. He suggested they move those up to show visitors the product quality. Those features can support your value proposition and make your product more enticing. But remember, you’re not selling the product just yet, you’re getting the visitor pumped about your league and getting them interested.

Step 3: Capture the email address

So, you’ve focused your page objective, have expressed your value prop and got the visitor a little interested in your product. How do you drive in for the touchdown and get that email address?

Time to optimize that form field! People get anxious when it comes to putting in their email address, because they think you’re going to spam them ‘til they go crazy. So, as our Managing Director/CEO, Dr. Flint McGlaughlin says, you need to show the visitor that the offer is worth the risk of putting in their email address.

How do you do that? Simple, offer something. You don’t want to come off as if you’re just trying to get their email address. In this case our research team had a few incentives CBS Sports could try.

• A free preview guide for the upcoming season for all those potential commissioners who sign up early to get information about the league. Trust me, fantasy football players love that stuff!
• An exclusive top players draft list for the potential commissioners, (the first year I started playing fantasy football, I probably would have given up my first born for that list. I kid, I kid. I don’t even have a child, but yea, I definitely would have been interested in that list of top prospects.)
• Another nice incentive that Adam suggested was offering those potential commissioners an exclusive 20% discount just for signing up early and reserving their spot. That discount could be used if they finally do decide to register for the league that season.

The next way to optimize that form field is changing the look a bit. One thing Adam suggested was changing the birth date section to a pre-selected “Yes, I am 18 years or older” line. It takes away the hassle of having to type in your date of birth to confirm you are the appropriate age to use that product. Remember, you want to make the process as smooth as possible for the visitor.

My two cents on that form field would be changing the call to action from the current, “sign up now,” to something like, “Get in the game now,” “Reserve your spot now,” or “Get an early start.” Obviously it would have to be a phrase that complements the incentive. I think that would get me more pumped about signing up than what’s currently there.

Well that’s it for my notes! I hope these tips helped you. I will make sure to take notes at my next infiltration of a “MECLABS meeting of the minds” and bring you some more insight.

(Now that you’ve read our two cents, I welcome you to use the comments section and tell us what you would do to optimize this page!)

Related Resources

Landing Page Optimization: Identifying friction to increase conversion and get a Nobel Prize

Landing Page Testing: Designing and prioritizing experiments

Internet Marketing: Optimizing form fields to maximize conversions

MarketingExperiments Quarterly Research Journal, Q3 2010

The 2010 Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to Peter Diamond, Dale Mortensen and Christopher Pissarides for their research trying to explain why unemployment remains so high in the U.S. and other advanced economies. More specifically, they won for their analysis of markets with search frictions – any factors that keep markets from operating efficiently.

Being the amateur economist I am (CV: 11^th grade with Mr. Lamar, I’ve read several issues of The Economist), I was elated to hear about this selection. Theoretical economics is sometimes too, well, theoretical. Supply A meets Demand B and they live happily ever after.

With the notable exception of Dan Ariely, I often wonder if these economists live in the real world or just a magical Shangri-la where everyone always behaves rationally, and mere trifles like food and energy aren’t important aspects in the average family budget (I believe this Eden is called Princeton).

The world I live in doesn’t work that way. Which gets us to your landing page… Read more…

It’s always great to see our students set sail in the world of testing. When Seth Jenks of G5 Leadership (a company that provides online leadership training) submitted his treatments for the MarketingExperiments Optimization LinkedIn Group members [Editor’s note: It’s reassuring to see that, after Boris first sent me this post for editing, some of our group members offered similar optimization and testing advice] to review and critique, I wouldn’t have guessed that it was one of his first attempts to structure a split test.

The results of his test are not only useful in the immediate sense—he doubled the conversion rate—but also are highly valuable as a starting point for building future iterations of tests.

What we can glean from Seth’s results, and how might subsequent testing be shaped? I thought Seth was already on to the key issue here: he called it “trust.” At MarketingExperiments, we’re used to calling it “credibility” and “clarity of the value proposition.” Both of these must be understood in the context of what motivation (another special term in our jargon) the visitors bring to the page. So let’s start from the top—what are visitors looking for when they arrive? Read more…

B2C e-commerce is probably the road most traveled in landing page optimization. With shopping cart processes becoming increasingly standardized, e-tailers have learned on their own and from each other, creating better and better shopping experiences. Top names like Amazon.com and Ebay certainly waste no time in their testing and optimization work (or so I hear).

However, in B2C, there is a special segment of sites that sell…nothing. That is, they sell an idea, a feeling, an emotion. These are typically charitable or other non-profit organizations that solicit donations for a cause. Read more…

Today on our Web clinic – Technology Blind Spots: How human insight revealed a hidden (and almost missed) 31% gain – we will be releasing never before published research from our laboratory. And you know what we like to do with our audience when we have fresh research that they have never seen before…

That’s right; we like to turn them into guinea pigs.

We like to see if our blog readers, knowing the basic circumstance surrounding a recent test, can predict the outcome. How good is their online marketing radar? Can they spot a good webpage when they see one? How is marketing intuition performing these days?

But honestly, what really matters is the cheese they will be racing for today – one good-ole slice of free online certification course cheese with a little Twitter-love wine to wash it down.

Leave a comment below to enter and let the games begin. Read more…