Google Adwords Arrow Trick To Increase Click Through Rates
A few Mondays ago I answered this question where I revealed a little trick I like to use in my Adwords adcopy that makes my ads make a little arrow with the keywords like this:
Well a ton of questions emerged… Threads on forums poped up and I started getting email… The questions and comments ranged anywhere from “How do you do that?” to “Do you have any real data to support your numbers?”.
So lets cover the first question - How is this done?
In my example I use Google Adwords. Google has a function {keyword:sub} that will automatically substitute the keyword where the {keyword:sub} goes and if it is to many chars then the “sub” is used.
For instance lets say you bid on keywords “Michael Jackson” and “Jay-Z” to send to ringtone offers. Then in Adwords you write your ad like this:
Title: {keyword:New} Ringtones
Headline1: Get The Latest Ringtones By {keyword:Artists}
Headline2: {keyword:New} Ringtones Instantly Sent To Your Phone!
In the case of the keyword Jay-z that would make
Jay-Z Ringtones
Get The Latest Ringtones By Jay-Z
Jay-Z Ringtones Instantly Sent To Your Phone!
Now with Michael Jackson Its to many chars so the ad shows like this:
New Ringtones
Get The Latest Ringtones By Artists
New Ringtones Instantly Sent To Your Phone!
So you see when you have a keyword that is to long for the ad it uses whatever is after the : in your keyword function. easy huh?
Next Question - Do you have any data to support this claim?
Well the truth is at the time I did not have any numbers a/b comparison because I did not use what did not work and really to test it I would have to lose some money… oh well… This morning I did some a/b testing with a ad that did not have the bold keywords forming a >
Here is the screen shot with results from this mornings a/b testing as you can see the ad copy forming a > is at .40% CTR where the normal is at .19%. So this was actually over a 200% increase in CTR. :
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A 200% increase would make it .60.
.20 to .40 is a 100%
Not to rain on your parade but it’s just about a 100% increase. x + 100% is equal to 2 * x.
math is gibberish my friend
I honestly don’t see what it matter as far as the increase is concerned, the fact is she had an increase and a very good one at that! I say way to go! I also believe it IS the arrow, if you think about it. When you read a post or email with text that has been scored over, don’t you read that scored text?? Aren’t you curious as to what it is??
Way to go Shoe!! I think you’re onto something
Great little trick there, I’ve been using this one for a while myself. Thanks for sharing
Nice trick, though the reason for the increased CTR in one of the ads could also be the fact that the better performing ad is utilizing DKI while the other one is not.
btw, nice number of cheap clicks..
I know you’ve done this kind of testing before, so maybe previous experience is driving your conclusions more than your example, but in the example in this post, the ad with the higher CTR promises 10 complimentary ringtones, and the other ad says 100% complimentary. On different lines.
I would think that is a significant enough difference to say that it might not be the “arrow” that caused this particular test to favor the first ad.
Although I love the idea. I’ve wondered a few times if the aesthetics/geometry of the ad played any part.
While I don’t dispute the visual draw of the arrow, it’s funny you post this a day after Aaron posted this:
http://www.seobook.com/archives/002026.shtml
Where are these functions documented? I’ve never seen them on the AdWords help center… Are they for high-volume accounts only?
I think your data is really inconclusive since on the 2nd ad you are not using the keyword on the 2nd line. The increase could be due to the fact that the keyword is mentioned in the ad twice and have nothing to do with any ‘arrow’ bold text.
The only way to accurately test this would be to use the exact same wording, with and without the bold text, which you cannot do since Google automatically does will bold the text.
I might be missing something, but isn’t this A/B test really showing the difference between an ad with keywords inserted vs. one without? There are too many variables there. I would like to see it tested using both ads with keyword insertion, with one using the arrow trick and the other one not forming an arrow, but using the same dynamic keywords.
Yay for math!
Not too sure if this is because of the arrow or the fact that many of copy words are in bold. I think it might be the later.
This trick is very hard to implement. I would imagine that, for example, the ring-tone keywords would be “JayZ ringtone” not just “JayZ”. If so, using the keyword tool will work for the title but not for the body copy. If you follow Shoe’s example, then you can potentially target searches for Jay Z clothes and/or CDs and get bad clicks to your campaign.
Just my 2 cents.
Interesting, Personally I think the arrow is doing the trick.
once again your a star! Thanks!
now i got my daily fix form shoemoney
That’s awesome! To be honest, I never knew that keyword function ever existed….that’s going to be quite useful!
I should point out some mistakes you made:
1. The title for Michael Jackson query should be “Michael Jackson Ringstones” not “New Ringstones”.
2. An arrow will be formed in the ads only if the queries are short.
3. In your example, you will have a broken arrow since the last line is too long for a dynamic keyword.
Cheers,
You own ringtones.net!
[...] Google Adwords Arrow Trick To Increase Click Through Rates [...]
actually you miss the point… because there are to many chars with Michael Jackson it uses your sub:
This is as close to a real world a/b testing as I will do.
The fact is that unless you want to make each keyword ad vs dynamic you are not going to get exact. I dont have time to do that =P
Correct the only way to do it is to have 1 ad with dynamic and static data and compare… except you would have no volume to compare it with.
That is why this example is realistic because its actually how you do it.
actually no… i just blocked the first part of the domain out
Just to be clear, Aaron was posting about small data sets and I wouldn’t say this one was terribly small.
Nice CPC you got there imo. What’s your conversion rate off that amount of clicks?
Stu
Shoe- At first I was amazed, but then I went to one of my ads to show my wife and I noticed that the keywords that I am bidding on alreay show up bold. So if I goto to google’s home page and do a search for some keywords that I have in adwords, those keywords bold all over the results. I guess I am confused at what the real benefit is. Is this used primarly with the use of a general keyword of ” “shoemoney” ” where your ad would show up with any combination of someone using shoemoney in a search phrase? hope this makes sense.
Not sure I am getting the benefit of this in full. At first it seemed like it would bold the keywords that someone searches. But when I analyzed one of my keywords that I advertise under, I noticed that all those keywords within the results including the sponsored results show up bolded. So if someone used the trick for “rare cars”, the bolding would occur anyway if someone searched “rare cars”.
Am I missing something?
Can’t wait to see all of the copy cat ads running in the next few days.
This is dyanmic keyword insertion right? Am I missing something or did no one know about this function?
This is actually something my class went over in Graphic Design. Many corporations use this in logos, magazines, etc. Fedex is probably the most famous for it.
I don’t doubt that this brings in more clicks, since it helps bring attention and subconsciously makes the user think about it.
However, does the increase in CTR also increase the sales proportionate to the increase in cost?
The arrow theory is an interesting idea, but this test doesn’t prove or disprove it. People who measure their advertising have learned that “what you say is more important than how you say it”. In this case, the “what you say” is significantly different in each ad, and I (like many of the other commenters) would expect this to swamp any effect from the change in layout.
Actually, that throws down the gauntlet: does anyone fancy their chances at being the official prover/disprover of “Shoemoney’s Arrow Theory”? Your name would go down in internet marketing history!
Interesting data.
A more interesting question to me would be was there a corresponding difference in the conversion rates of the offers on the landing pages?
The dynamic keyword insertion isn’t mentioned in the AdWords help centre, except one brief mention in a PDF:
http://www.google.com/ads/library/maximimum_effect_dec03.pdf
…Still works though - for all accounts.
Good tip. I’ve been testing this for a couple of weeks now.
What’s interesting is that it doesn’t seem to work across all KWs - half of the campaigns I’ve tested have seen an increase in CTR, half have seen a decrease.
I guess ads without the KW repeated three times come across as less spammy, so this affects people in different ways, depending on what they’re searching for and what stage of the buying process they’re in..?
That is pretty damn smart observation.
Do think the arrow effect is tracking an automatic eye movement?
Have you tried it with a column effect? Keywords down the left column?
Just a Typo I think…
Headline2: {keywords:New} Ringtones Instantly Sent To Your Phone!
Shouldn’t “keywords” be “keyword”?
Well…I’m alredy up 8% ctr on a niche I’ve had a hard time getting my ctr up above 15%.
Anyone can do it, but they don’t post it on their site. Problem is that too many people just use the dynamic stuff in their title and don’t customize things.
Also, there’s a difference between KeyWord and Keyword and keyword. Use them as appropriate.
Yes, they’re in bold. But are your keywords showing up in a geometric pattern? That’s what he’s pointing out here.
Didn’t Andrew Goodman point this out in his book. Now calling you out just checking if I’m mixing something up here.
Thanks for this great piece of advice. As David asked before, are you bidding on the keyword “jay-z” to have this effect? Is there a way to bid on “jay-z ringtones” and have a similar pattern?
Anyone find the ad shoemoney is referring to on google? I can’t! Looking for the text in the ad and a site that ends with ringtones.net. Can’t find anything unless its Totally-Free-Ringtones.not but from the ad he shows this looks too long.
[...] your CTR (Click Through Rate) was given recently by ShoeMoney on his blog. He talks about his “arrow approach” to improving CTR. You will see how strategically placing keywords in an “arrow” position gives a much [...]
You could probably improve this add, by making a small change… {KeyWord:..} Means the first letter of each word is capitalized {keyword:…} means nothing is capitalized..
Also, to be a truly accurate test, it would probably make sense to have the exact same keyword text you use as replacement text be the B version.
Small differences in even a single keyword can have HUGE impacts on CTR and Conversion. I blogged about this a few weeks back.
This data appears to be from the content network, as the impressions are super high and CTR super low. None of the bold text will show as bold on content sites so I would say this test is meaningless.
The effect might work on search, but one could not make any judgements from this particular test.
The trick does work where it fits with the keywords.. the key is drawing more attention to your ad then the other ads around it.
Ahhh you’re right, for some reason i saw the value in the clicks column and thought it was impressions.
Also Aarons study was based on 600 impressions… I did over 250,000
Derren Brown ain’t got nothing on you Shoe.
errr? If you look at the screen you see it’s the search…NOT content network ;o) And that is exactly what made me think shoemoney is an freak lol. Damn impressive impressions you got there man.
Hey Shoe thanks for the tips! I had no idea there was a dynamic way to insert keywords into ad copy. Great little trick.
This particular example doesn’t prove much, other than one ad does better than another ad - but the text isn’t the same so you can’t compare. The only way to test this would be to have 2 ads with the exact same text on them, only laid out differently.
(this trick may totally work, but this test doesn’t prove much)
Agreed. This test is inconclusive to say the least.
great little trick.. i love how you think outside the box so much.. i cant wait to test this on some of my adwords campaigns.
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Everyone else in the ringtone business is now bidding 8c
I agree. I would guess that the greater CTR is as a direct result of the dynamic keywords and doesn’t really prove much.
From 0.11% to 0.17%.
Stable results for 3 days…
Mr. MooMoney, you rock!
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Wow! Thanks for sharing! Another Adwords tip in the bag
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Hmmm…thanks! Since I’m getting ready to place my first Ad-Words ad, this is useful stuff!
I gotta try this out. Thanks for all the tips…One day I will get fat checks from google like you.
It works - trust me
I also read alliteration, like repeating the same sounds over and over again helps increase ctr, I wonder if this is related.
Hope my CTR will raise up in next month
–blog for dream–
Great trick I’ve been using this one for a while myself. Thanks for nice idea.
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never really thought about it, and i didn’t know you could do that keyword thing with adwords, even after reading an ebook about how to succeed with adwords, jeez!
i wish i could drive more traffic/make money off of adsense like you say i can (freeyarnball.blogspot.com)
Nice article. Thanks for the tip.
Nice tip here! I am going to give your “arrow ” tip a try on Adwords as well and see if my CTR will increase. Thanks for sharing!
Heh, interesting trick. I’ll make sure to test it some time.
~ Dave
Thanks for the Tip. I will try it out.
Maybe another book idea Tips from Shoe.
It could work.
Cheers
I don’t see what is so special here?
This is a bad A/B test - you state that the triangle is the cause for the CTR spike, but that ad also uses dynamic keyword insertion and has entirely different wording. You’d want to keep the wording as close as possible and just alter the position of the bold keyword to evaluate the performance appropriately.
It just comes down to — make sure you use the keywords in the ad! Generic, boring ads give you crap results! Period!
Thanks for the informational post Shoe! Learned from it
wow you pay like $0.06-0.07 per click? this is quite low.. I guess you have a nice ROI, would love to see your landing + keywords
This is a really funny post. I find it hilarious that you would give weight to the fact that a bold arrow should take the credit for an increased CTR. I am a PPC specialist and I have extesive experience to understand that the ARROW is not what created the increase in CTR. The simple fact that you are triple bolded is most likely the main determining factor. A really good test would have been to have an arrow bold, 3 bolds in the front of the message and 3 bolds at the end of the message. Basically an a/b/c test and with the messages all stating the same thing and not 2 different messages like 10 complimentary vs 100% complimentary. Good try though and a great way to stirr up a debate…
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I recently read something about german auto dealers using ascii cars to gain a little bit more attention to their ads. The neat ways to increase your CTR…
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Фонарь. Джо снова пиарится по чёрному - как с ДМОЗом.
Think about this blog expand to other countries?
I am in the crowd to see the ShoeMoney in other languages. English is universal, but each country has its peculiarity. Certainly, ShoeMoney would reference in any country. (Using Google Translate)
MMMM interesting method, something i didn’t know
very interesting, the arrow is a welcome addition i think
One truly awesome trick - thanks Shoe