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. :
March 3, 2010 at 3:34 am
is this method still work??
February 22, 2010 at 10:14 am
adword campign is very easy to make cash.one thing one must increase CTR so that cost of campign will reduce
February 26, 2010 at 4:29 pm
This is great information. Truly appreciate you sharing this. Also wanted to add another resource, Internet Advertising Guru David Szetela’s new book, Customers Now, on how to master two simple content advertising programs – Google’s AdWords content ad network and ContextWeb’s ADSDAQ Exchange – so that you can efficiently get your message out and effectively generate a strong customer base.
A free copy of the ebook is available at http://www.customersnowbook.com/ds/free_ebook.html
February 18, 2010 at 7:26 pm
You are misleading people here. Increasing your CTR does nothing for you if those clicks are not converting and in the case where you are creating nice small 5 – 20 kw adgroups, then you don’t need keyword substitution, you should be writing very sharp hardcode ads.
I had a client that used keyword substitution and complained when i took over, deactivated it and instantly dropped the CTR. What he didn’t understand (until now) is that his cost per sale dropped 200% and he is now making a hell of a lot more money.
The key is to attract the right clicks, not every click. I would suggest that your idea of only paying the minimum amount is fine, but offering a good solution and paying a good amount with well constructed adgroups and ads is always the best way to go about adwords.
For more information, please e-mail me.
March 9, 2010 at 9:04 am
Good point. It’s cost per conversion that really counts. And nice tight adgroups works best. To be honest I don’t use keyword substitution much… because my campaigns don’t seem to perform as well as they would if just manually creating the ads myself.
February 14, 2010 at 2:48 am
I never spend my money on these ebooks.
February 13, 2010 at 6:29 am
Thanks for the nice tip. I am going to try out the trick.
February 3, 2010 at 10:20 am
Seems like some good tips here – this is worth me investigating…
January 29, 2010 at 10:42 am
Really nice tip, thanks I’m going to be giving this a go!
January 26, 2010 at 10:24 am
Thanks for the demonstration…that was very helpful
January 19, 2010 at 6:20 am
Great site, I am always looking for new resources.
January 13, 2010 at 5:36 pm
I’ve read through this before and didn’t implement it, but now that I am starting up another blog that will rely on my adwords income, I needed to really improve my ctr.
I can say that after some testing with this , I have actually improved my ctr by 7%. I know there are other tips and tricks as well, so I am off to learn more from the site here.
Thanks
January 12, 2010 at 8:48 pm
Really works.
Nice tip , thanks for sharing.
January 7, 2010 at 7:37 am
This is good advice, will give it a go!
December 22, 2009 at 3:31 am
That’s great info. I’ve read through long discussions on web forums about using no follow. Most have recommended that no follow not be used. Now I see it won’t hurt my site.
December 10, 2009 at 7:13 pm
I think this is a kewl little trick nice find.
The Padrino Dot Com
December 5, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Adwords is the future if one wants to promote a site.
December 1, 2009 at 2:56 pm
I think using keywords is good. Also having them form arrows is a neat trick too. Will have to do some playing around to see if I can get it to work for me.
November 22, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Great trick. I’m hoping to increase the ctr now!
November 17, 2009 at 10:52 am
hmm….is it ok for google? sorry…i am a newbie…need to learn more
November 9, 2009 at 12:04 am
Any broken heart shape for Adword ads? It will come in handy before Valentine Day.
November 7, 2009 at 5:34 pm
thanks for the great trick, eventhought I’m new on internet marketing but that theary was briliant
October 21, 2009 at 3:31 pm
What a great idea! I’m going to try this out.
October 21, 2009 at 12:28 am
Sounds like a crazy deal, but I will give it a whirl!
There is no telling where Twiitter will take us.
Thx!
October 16, 2009 at 3:27 am
I have tested and it works! thanks for youre tips!
September 26, 2009 at 3:34 pm
Shoe, this is a sick trick! I’m definitely going to give this a try.
September 25, 2009 at 12:44 pm
nice trick…. way to go.. peace
September 17, 2009 at 11:16 am
This is a pretty darn good trick. I have also seen my CTRs increase as well doing this! Glad to have stumbled across this post recently
September 11, 2009 at 12:14 am
Just started my first campaign tonight with it.
September 8, 2009 at 3:38 am
Great trick. You agree you dont have numbers to prove your claims. But we believe you.
September 5, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Good trick. But is that really effective?
September 3, 2009 at 6:49 am
That’s relally interesting. I’ll try. But I’m still having problems with the keywords tool.
September 2, 2009 at 12:00 pm
>makes me wonder what behind door number one.
makes people wonder…
September 2, 2009 at 11:53 am
What’s funny is that I just made a leaderboard banner and made a funky 3-D icon (looks like it’s coming towards you). My thinking is one, it will catch your eye, and that makes me wonder what behind door number one.
I’m going to test it and see.
August 29, 2009 at 5:45 am
Just had a read of this article. Must say the arrow idea is quite unique. I wonder what goes on in Shoe’s head for him to come up with such a unique approach?
September 1, 2009 at 8:19 pm
Great info going to try it now
August 28, 2009 at 6:34 am
Just wanted to know, has anyone tried this ? What sort of results he or she has got?
August 17, 2009 at 7:48 pm
cool tricks I think I should try this
August 27, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Great info I take care of our adds it looks like it would be worth a try!
August 15, 2009 at 8:57 am
I really think this “trick” really works. We use the same Arrow trick in our onpage marketing at the index page. It brings us more more clicks on advertisements! Brm
August 9, 2009 at 11:13 pm
Wow. That’s something genuinely new I learned today. Thanks shoe!
August 8, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Excellent tactic. I could see how that would cause your click through rates go up.
July 19, 2009 at 8:03 am
Jeremy,
very, very valuable tip. Thanks that you shared!
September 1, 2009 at 8:20 pm
That is a great tip thanks
July 17, 2009 at 3:47 pm
we used this trick several times with many website, it works really good. Thanks for sharing.
July 14, 2009 at 2:31 am
Good trick to the adwords. But it must be analyzed the trick work for all of the adwords champaign ?
September 8, 2009 at 3:42 am
Well I am visiting this websites only for a month or so. I have began participating here only this week. I have learned quite a few tricks already.
July 9, 2009 at 2:04 am
Jeremy~
This is most probably the most valuable tip I have seen in quite a while. Thank you for sharing this with everybody. You Rock!
CouldB
July 4, 2009 at 11:14 am
ya i think that you have just introduced a nice little trick ,which can really help us a lot. i try to apply it as well. thanks for giving such valuable information .
July 1, 2009 at 11:59 am
wow thks for the infor man. nice trick.
June 22, 2009 at 1:27 am
This is what is called as a quality and informative post. This is why people flock such blogs and enjoy reading every bit of it. The value and knowledge that this post gives a reader is something that a lot of people will save as a business secret.
Thanks a lot for sharing such wonderful business secrets.
Data or, no data, if the trick is working, it means that it is worth a try.
July 15, 2009 at 2:27 pm
I never tried adwords for sure, I totally agree with you Kumar, I like the way you express “this post gives a reader is something that a lot of people will save as a business secret.”
I heard that for several keyword on adwords need to be bidded for highest bidder, is that true?
June 21, 2009 at 10:59 am
I think that that’s a brilliant little trick. I honestly wish I had found this sooner. Nice one mate.
June 17, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Jeremy, this post means giving value to your readership. Why?
Because you revealed a trick many “Gurus” take our money to teach. You discovered a little hint that most advertisers struggle to know.
Anyway, this strategy would help our ad get a better click through rate because the searched keyword would become bold in the ad. On top of that, you backed your claim with your real proof of your AdWords Data. Something that many of those “Gurus” don’t even dare to think about it.
.
Thanks Jeremy. You’re the Man!
To Your Success!
Hooshmand
June 27, 2009 at 4:48 pm
I have never use adword. I guess I will use it in sometime in the future and it certain a good tips
July 28, 2009 at 11:02 am
Adword really effective to drive visitors with targetted keywords to your site, some keywords might too expensive to spend on but we could try another combination of related keywords
September 1, 2009 at 8:20 pm
Adwords have been very effective!
June 13, 2009 at 6:36 am
Thanks for the share shoe. it would make our ad stand out. i have always suffered from under performing ads and Google eliminating them. his should do the trick especially for the ring tone type example sites you mentioned
June 12, 2009 at 5:50 am
Thats simply amazing.. You simply rock..This is dyanmic keyword insertion I guess..
June 7, 2009 at 8:46 am
This is really cool, i have to try this out!
June 4, 2009 at 4:07 am
hmm … not convinced im afraid…. i tend to think that anything under a 2% CTR is pretty much a waste of time.
May 31, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Neat tip! I’m going to give this a try, hopefully I’ll have better results than normal
Thanks for sharing!
May 28, 2009 at 5:15 am
This is a clever trick – thanks for sharing !
April 25, 2009 at 12:46 pm
That’s an excellent tip, was searching for google adwords improving tips when I came across your’s I was sold
April 15, 2009 at 4:05 pm
That’s a very good way to increase your revenue from a AdWords campaign. Going to use this for my new campaigns!
March 19, 2009 at 6:27 pm
This is a neat little trick! I’ve never heard of it before, but will definitely try it out on my next campaigns. Thanks.
March 17, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Never seen this before, thanks for sharing and thanks for some nice tips.
September 1, 2009 at 8:21 pm
Thanks what a grand tip
March 15, 2009 at 9:33 am
Thanks for this tips, I will try it
February 26, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Thanks. This is an interesting theory and I thought it might work because it maximizes the repetition of the keyword but leave the most visual space between them (so it doesn’t look stuffed). At least for me, however, it didn’t work in practice. My straight A/B got better results without this keyword pattern. Always worth testing, though.
February 25, 2009 at 11:48 am
Thanks for the tips.. I will use your idea in my adword PPC marketing. Hope will increase my CTR..
February 25, 2009 at 5:36 am
That’s a nice tips. It’s important to increase our knowledge about keywords so we’ll earn unlimited profits.
February 23, 2009 at 10:59 am
Thanks for this great article!
This would really help me out!
March 4, 2009 at 11:05 am
Yup… I agree with you.
February 21, 2009 at 11:36 pm
Learning New,Learning New.the adwords trick you mention here now,is applied o my campaign I will see what is going on soon,and with combining those tricks with other tools from KYC and Hittail I just hope from now on I could made more CTR then only with this tricks
February 21, 2009 at 5:41 pm
This is one of the most useful posts on this blog to date, and the fact that it’s still getting comments more than 2 years later reflects that. I just made a post about increasing AdWords CTR and linked back to this post as something to consider. It involves using symbols, which isn’t new by any means, but theres some pretty creative stuff with bullets and high-ASCII.
February 20, 2009 at 7:11 am
It was really a great idea.
Than you,
February 16, 2009 at 6:45 pm
I’ve had good results with dynamic keyword insertion but have not noticed any increase in CTR based on the positioning of inserted words. Will try again though after reading this
February 10, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Oh yeah…I remember this post and trick… I have been meaning to test this out. Thanks for the reminder, I saw it in the post listed top left.
February 8, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Jeremy, That extraordinary little move has returned some really great results if you are promoting a hot product. If your content is poor then the results seem to be about the same. My experience has been to only promote niche products that are of true value and ones that I have used. That makes me a better consultant on the subject matter. I am sure the group will get much use from the function.
February 4, 2009 at 4:52 am
good post…
January 30, 2009 at 4:36 am
So you mean to say, Adwords will increase the clicks in a big way?
January 29, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Great trick
January 27, 2009 at 10:36 pm
What a great, clever little trick. I’m definitely going to try this one out. Thanks.
January 21, 2009 at 8:56 am
Wow, you got a nice trick there, that will sure come handy to me, thanks.I’m trying it right now
January 19, 2009 at 6:55 am
wow what a lovely trick..you are master my friend..
January 4, 2009 at 12:14 pm
That’s a nice little trick you got there! Thanks!
December 22, 2008 at 9:07 am
Nice trick..I might use it when i will start investing in Google Adwords..
December 16, 2008 at 10:06 am
Thanks, this will most certainly come in handy. Any idea if DKI works for the target URL as well?
November 15, 2008 at 9:55 pm
nice tricks
November 15, 2008 at 2:02 am
To be honest, this is awesome! , I never knew that keyword function ever existed….that’s going to be quite useful!
Thanks !
November 13, 2008 at 8:47 am
Great little trick there, I’ve been using this one for a while by our websites and really works a little. Greetz, Monvesta
November 7, 2008 at 1:17 pm
That definitely looks like a neat trick. I hope you made some sales..
November 7, 2008 at 11:12 am
Does this trick still work???
November 6, 2008 at 12:31 am
very cool. I tried it, but I think I’m doing something wrong! Is it still working or has google fixed it by now.
November 4, 2008 at 11:09 am
I think the arrow is doing the trick.
November 1, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Thats very useful and looks a lot better, and props for using my main man Jay z
October 29, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Great little (BIG) Trick you got here. And those results are showing just how big this little trick turns out to be. Most certainly worth to try it out! Thanks man, ´m trying it out right now!
October 19, 2008 at 6:10 am
I think you are great at finding wonderful tricks, like the flight ticket.
October 12, 2008 at 6:27 am
A cunning trick. I should implement ASAP….muhahahahahaha
October 11, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Years ago I used to work for a newspaper in Toronto Canada that used a similar technique with rivers in the text to draw attention towards ads. Brilliant, thank you!
October 10, 2008 at 3:06 pm
That’s a nice little trick you got there! Thanks!
October 2, 2008 at 6:49 pm
by the way, i finally used this trick in combination with DKI and it is interesting to see the ads that way but i didn’t really see that much of a difference… what i do notice is that if I use ” symbol or ? google doesn’t care or say anything about it. yet if i use ! or CAPS they start bitchin’ …
October 1, 2008 at 6:55 am
I always read in your blog about adsense related topics and get exited and try to do the same in my blog – but till date I could not understood the trick which you used to diplay more than 3 image adds in your right side bar – Please Dear Friend I like to get the details how you did that. I am very much Interested in doing that. Shaikh Izaj Ahmed Abdul Razak of India.
September 25, 2008 at 3:37 pm
This is definitely something that works.. I put it up against several of my best performing ads, and in each case, it did at least as well, if not better, in short order. Thanks for the info, and keep the great content coming! I never leave the House of Shoe without learning something..
September 17, 2008 at 11:39 pm
cool trick.. well i am just a starter in ppc..
though i dont have any success yet, i am happy that i am gaining knowledge.. thanks
September 15, 2008 at 2:48 pm
solid post.
April 15, 2008 at 4:45 pm
It’s interesting but I dont thin’k it’s any trick at all infact the only reason there was an increase is because the keywords appears more on the ad, making the ads quality go up as well as CTR simply because if a person is searching for “cat clothing” that person is more likely to click on the ad that has the keyword in it 3 times as opposed to the ad with the keyword only appearing once.
- Luis Gross
September 25, 2008 at 3:39 pm
I think it’s more than just repeating the ad word. I’ve done that in other configurations before, and didn’t get as good of a performance. I think this has more to do with visually how the mind picks it up that pattern of words (perhaps I’m over analyzing) but I would suspect that’s true.
April 14, 2008 at 9:53 pm
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
April 14, 2008 at 1:52 am
SEOrious trick you’re sharing here. Am currently learning about adwords, and gems like this will definitely come in handy. Will try this out for sure!
April 13, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Woah this is a really great ppc trick I had heard about this one in a forum somewhere but thanks for sharing with everyone!
April 13, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Thanks for the tip, trying it now!
April 13, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Thanks for the suggestion, trying it now!
March 24, 2008 at 3:28 am
i will try this neat trick on my next adwords campaign
March 21, 2008 at 1:20 am
Sometimes I wonder what Google are really up to? I oftn feel they are trying to drive their customers, that is me, away with some of the seemingly weird and often abrupt policy changes they make. Sometimes it would be nice to be asked by them what I think, not always get emails about how their changes and how it will screw my business.
March 14, 2008 at 8:46 pm
I should hire a typography person to do my ads…
March 13, 2008 at 6:44 pm
I have tried this cool little trick with one of my Adsense campaigns and have noticed a 75% increase in CTR. Awesome little trick!
March 7, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Thats a very cool trick and its always nice to see supporting data instead of some wild claim other people make
March 4, 2008 at 10:27 am
whilst I am sure this is a good trick, I really find it difficult to word my ads to make this shape while still making sense. Maybe I shouldn’t worry so much about creating a proper sentence and just fill it full of keywords?
February 28, 2008 at 3:42 pm
That’s a pretty good trick. It’s always good if you can draw extra attention to your ad and I like your adwords tip. It’s something that I’ll have to test out with various ad campaigns and keywords to see how well it works out. It’s great to see you got some positive results with it.
~Terry
February 28, 2008 at 12:51 pm
I didn’t test it yet for my PPC campaigns, but it’s a great though and I am quite sure that this attracts the eye of more people. Great tip!
February 26, 2008 at 11:28 pm
Interesting trick. I bookmarked this so I can come back when I start using adwords. As of now, I haven’t used the program at all to drive traffic. Just use adsense so far, but I plan to use adwords soon.
February 25, 2008 at 10:14 am
Thanks for the information! I’ll test it out today!
February 22, 2008 at 2:57 am
There was someone or some company using this arrow trick with a lot of results showing up a couple weeks ago.
February 21, 2008 at 3:59 am
thanks for the tips
February 19, 2008 at 3:15 am
That post could have been a bit more detailed. But thanks for the adwords advice.
I use adwords mainly for affiliate programs profit, and it works okay.
Sean
February 15, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Great little trick. Thanks man!
February 13, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Not sure if i really understand the benefits of this
February 13, 2008 at 11:22 am
I also did not know that existed. Great tips, I’ll definitely try it out, thanks.
February 12, 2008 at 10:08 am
Seems very interesting
February 9, 2008 at 12:55 am
So besides owning 2 blogs you sell adwords for other companies?
February 4, 2008 at 9:50 am
Is it bad when you have an CTR of 5%?
February 3, 2008 at 3:44 pm
I have been trying a much cheaper small version of this on MSadcenter and the arrow version is pulling 2-1!
Granted I have a much smaller budget, but still cool. I don’t think Google would stop this. It is just good marketing using eye movement. Not blackhat at all
February 2, 2008 at 9:29 pm
This has been out for a while now and I’ve yet to actually see this in place. I would think that people would be trying it by now. Has Google stoppd this little trick?
February 2, 2008 at 11:00 am
A 200% increase would make it .60.
.20 to .40 is a 100%
January 30, 2008 at 6:37 pm
One truly awesome trick – thanks Shoe
January 29, 2008 at 12:59 pm
very interesting, the arrow is a welcome addition i think
January 29, 2008 at 11:37 am
MMMM interesting method, something i didn’t know
January 28, 2008 at 11:51 pm
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)
January 28, 2008 at 11:45 pm
Think about this blog expand to other countries?
January 28, 2008 at 11:50 am
Фонарь. Джо снова пиарится по чёрному – как с ДМОЗом.
January 21, 2008 at 1:00 am
math is gibberish my friend
January 17, 2008 at 10:13 pm
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…
January 4, 2008 at 4:15 pm
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…
January 3, 2008 at 12:42 pm
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
December 27, 2007 at 8:57 am
Thanks for the informational post Shoe! Learned from it
December 26, 2007 at 3:25 pm
It just comes down to — make sure you use the keywords in the ad! Generic, boring ads give you crap results! Period!
December 21, 2007 at 10:12 pm
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.
December 20, 2007 at 5:27 am
I don’t see what is so special here?
December 17, 2007 at 3:30 pm
Thanks for the Tip. I will try it out.
Maybe another book idea Tips from Shoe.
It could work.
Cheers
December 16, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Heh, interesting trick. I’ll make sure to test it some time.
~ Dave
December 12, 2007 at 8:24 am
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!
December 10, 2007 at 9:23 am
Nice article. Thanks for the tip.
December 3, 2007 at 8:53 pm
i wish i could drive more traffic/make money off of adsense like you say i can (freeyarnball.blogspot.com)
November 20, 2007 at 4:23 pm
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!
November 19, 2007 at 9:40 am
Great trick I’ve been using this one for a while myself. Thanks for nice idea.
November 18, 2007 at 8:29 pm
Hope my CTR will raise up in next month
–blog for dream–
November 16, 2007 at 10:48 pm
It works – trust me
November 13, 2007 at 8:08 pm
I also read alliteration, like repeating the same sounds over and over again helps increase ctr, I wonder if this is related.
November 8, 2007 at 4:12 pm
I gotta try this out. Thanks for all the tips…One day I will get fat checks from google like you.
November 8, 2007 at 3:06 pm
Hmmm…thanks! Since I’m getting ready to place my first Ad-Words ad, this is useful stuff!
March 4, 2007 at 3:37 am
Wow! Thanks for sharing! Another Adwords tip in the bag
February 12, 2007 at 7:15 am
From 0.11% to 0.17%.
Stable results for 3 days…
Mr. MooMoney, you rock!
February 9, 2007 at 10:08 pm
I agree. I would guess that the greater CTR is as a direct result of the dynamic keywords and doesn’t really prove much.
February 9, 2007 at 2:20 pm
Everyone else in the ringtone business is now bidding 8c
February 8, 2007 at 10:40 pm
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.
February 8, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Agreed. This test is inconclusive to say the least.
February 8, 2007 at 12:24 pm
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)
February 8, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Hey Shoe thanks for the tips! I had no idea there was a dynamic way to insert keywords into ad copy. Great little trick.
February 8, 2007 at 3:11 am
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.
February 7, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Derren Brown ain’t got nothing on you Shoe.
February 7, 2007 at 7:37 pm
Also Aarons study was based on 600 impressions… I did over 250,000
February 7, 2007 at 3:19 pm
Ahhh you’re right, for some reason i saw the value in the clicks column and thought it was impressions.
February 7, 2007 at 2:54 pm
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.
February 7, 2007 at 1:58 pm
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.
February 7, 2007 at 12:48 pm
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.
February 7, 2007 at 12:03 pm
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.
February 7, 2007 at 11:45 am
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?
February 7, 2007 at 10:43 am
Didn’t Andrew Goodman point this out in his book. Now calling you out just checking if I’m mixing something up here.
February 7, 2007 at 9:18 am
Yes, they’re in bold. But are your keywords showing up in a geometric pattern? That’s what he’s pointing out here.
February 7, 2007 at 9:16 am
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.
February 7, 2007 at 8:50 am
Well…I’m alredy up 8% ctr on a niche I’ve had a hard time getting my ctr up above 15%.
February 7, 2007 at 7:47 am
Just a Typo I think…
Headline2: {keywords:New} Ringtones Instantly Sent To Your Phone!
Shouldn’t “keywords” be “keyword”?
February 7, 2007 at 6:34 am
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?
February 7, 2007 at 5:35 am
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..?
February 7, 2007 at 5:27 am
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.
February 7, 2007 at 5:21 am
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?
February 7, 2007 at 5:16 am
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!
February 7, 2007 at 3:10 am
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?
February 7, 2007 at 1:27 am
This is dyanmic keyword insertion right? Am I missing something or did no one know about this function?
February 6, 2007 at 11:51 pm
Can’t wait to see all of the copy cat ads running in the next few days.
February 6, 2007 at 11:48 pm
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?
February 6, 2007 at 10:43 pm
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.
February 6, 2007 at 10:37 pm
Nice CPC you got there imo. What’s your conversion rate off that amount of clicks?
Stu
February 6, 2007 at 10:16 pm
Just to be clear, Aaron was posting about small data sets and I wouldn’t say this one was terribly small.
February 6, 2007 at 9:53 pm
actually no… i just blocked the first part of the domain out
February 6, 2007 at 9:52 pm
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.
February 6, 2007 at 9:51 pm
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
February 6, 2007 at 9:50 pm
actually you miss the point… because there are to many chars with Michael Jackson it uses your sub:
February 6, 2007 at 8:46 pm
You own ringtones.net!
February 6, 2007 at 8:44 pm
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,
February 6, 2007 at 8:03 pm
That’s awesome! To be honest, I never knew that keyword function ever existed….that’s going to be quite useful!
February 6, 2007 at 8:03 pm
once again your a star! Thanks!
now i got my daily fix form shoemoney
February 6, 2007 at 7:22 pm
Interesting, Personally I think the arrow is doing the trick.
February 6, 2007 at 6:43 pm
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.
February 6, 2007 at 6:12 pm
Yay for math!
February 6, 2007 at 6:10 pm
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.
February 6, 2007 at 6:06 pm
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.
February 6, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Where are these functions documented? I’ve never seen them on the AdWords help center… Are they for high-volume accounts only?
February 6, 2007 at 5:45 pm
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
October 19, 2008 at 6:11 am
Hm, looks like I can compile all such tricks when I start ppc marketing.
January 29, 2009 at 1:10 am
iam not receive money
January 29, 2009 at 1:11 am
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
February 6, 2007 at 5:33 pm
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.
February 6, 2007 at 5:31 pm
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..
February 6, 2007 at 5:29 pm
Great little trick there, I’ve been using this one for a while myself. Thanks for sharing
February 6, 2007 at 5:29 pm
Not to rain on your parade but it’s just about a 100% increase. x + 100% is equal to 2 * x.