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Google Adwords Arrow Trick To Increase Click Through Rates

ByJeremy Schoemaker

Feb 6, 2007

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:
Adwords CTRadwords arrow

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. :

By Jeremy Schoemaker

Jeremy "ShoeMoney" Schoemaker is the founder & CEO of ShoeMoney Media Group, and to date has sold 6 companies and done over 10 million in affiliate revenue. In 2013 Jeremy released his #1 International Best selling Autobiography titled "Nothing's Changed But My Change" - The ShoeMoney Story. You can read more about Jeremy on his wikipedia page here.

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320 thoughts on “Google Adwords Arrow Trick To Increase Click Through Rates”

  1. […] post by ShoeMoney and software by Elliott Back Tags: ecommerce, web hosting, search engine optimization, search […]

  2. Not to rain on your parade but it’s just about a 100% increase. x + 100% is equal to 2 * x.

  3. Great little trick there, I’ve been using this one for a while myself. Thanks for sharing 🙂

  4. 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.. 🙂

  5. 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.

      1. 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

  7. Where are these functions documented? I’ve never seen them on the AdWords help center… Are they for high-volume accounts only?

  8. 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.

    1. I think there is a way to know if arrow works.

      It is by trying without dynamic keywords, just with 1 adgroup – 1 keyword – 2 ads (1 with the arrow not in a dynamic way, the other with the same words in different position)

  9. 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.

  11. 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.

  14. That’s awesome! To be honest, I never knew that keyword function ever existed….that’s going to be quite useful!

  15. 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,

  17. […] Google Adwords Arrow Trick To Increase Click Through Rates […]

  18. actually you miss the point… because there are to many chars with Michael Jackson it uses your sub:

  19. 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

  20. 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.

  22. Just to be clear, Aaron was posting about small data sets and I wouldn’t say this one was terribly small.

  24. 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.

  25. 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?

  27. This is dyanmic keyword insertion right? Am I missing something or did no one know about this function?

  28. 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?

  29. 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!

  30. 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?

  32. 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..?

  33. 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?

  34. Just a Typo I think…
    Headline2: {keywords:New} Ringtones Instantly Sent To Your Phone!

    Shouldn’t “keywords” be “keyword”?

  35. Well…I’m alredy up 8% ctr on a niche I’ve had a hard time getting my ctr up above 15%.

  36. 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.

  37. Yes, they’re in bold. But are your keywords showing up in a geometric pattern? That’s what he’s pointing out here.

  38. Didn’t Andrew Goodman point this out in his book. Now calling you out just checking if I’m mixing something up here.

  39. 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?

  40. 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.

  41. Mat Siltala’s SEO Blog | Social Media Marketing & Blog Promotion » Here is a Method that is Helping Affiliate Marketers to get Higher CTR says:

    […] 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 […]

  42. 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.

  43. 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.

  44. 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.

  45. Ahhh you’re right, for some reason i saw the value in the clicks column and thought it was impressions.

  48. 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.

  49. Hey Shoe thanks for the tips! I had no idea there was a dynamic way to insert keywords into ad copy. Great little trick.

  50. 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)

  52. 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.

  53. […] finally the great Shoemoney revealed his adwords trick. His made a screenshot he showed to his blog i hope that is the exact stats. I’m sure some of this followers will do the […]

  54. BlueBobbo PPC Affiliate Marketing and Landing Pages » Friday Search Marketing Favorites - 2-9-2007 says:

    […] Shoemoney gives a free tip to increase your CTR with PPC programs through an “arrow trick”. He’s mentioned it many times, but […]

  56. I agree. I would guess that the greater CTR is as a direct result of the dynamic keywords and doesn’t really prove much.

  58. […] Read Around: Look for special Adwords tricks and tips such as the “Arrow trick” to increase click through rates. There are many websites/forums that discuss the ins and outs of […]

  59. […] Shoemoney is a genius, and provides the goods with the Adwords arrow trick […]

  60. […] Shoemoney is a genius, and provides the goods with the Adwords arrow trick […]

  61. […] Shoemoney’s Google Adwords arrow trick. […]

  63. […] tworzenia tekstu reklamowego z wykorzystaniem Keyword Insertion Tool wyjaÅ›niÅ‚ w poÅ›cie: Google Adwords Arrow Trick To Increase Click Through Rates […]

  64. […] an eye out for posts like these by Shoemoney, Perry Marshall, and Google’s official Adwords blog… (And if you got something out of this […]

  65. […] Google Adwords Arrow Trick To Increase Click Through Rates – ShoeMoneyâ„¢ […]

  66. www.foundagency.com.au - Australian SEO TARNISHED » Blog Archive » Most Searched Keywords and Highest Paying Keywords and KeyPhrases says:

    […] Shoemoney is really worth reading as well,  he is after all the master blaster of CTR […]

  67. […] Shoemoney’s Arrow Trick […]

  68. Hmmm…thanks! Since I’m getting ready to place my first Ad-Words ad, this is useful stuff!

  69. I gotta try this out. Thanks for all the tips…One day I will get fat checks from google like you.

  70. I also read alliteration, like repeating the same sounds over and over again helps increase ctr, I wonder if this is related.

  74. […] techniques like the arrow trick, or use alliteration. Otherwise, use more 'black-hat' and risky techniques, like leaving […]

  75. 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!

  76. i wish i could drive more traffic/make money off of adsense like you say i can (freeyarnball.blogspot.com)

  78. 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!

  80. Thanks for the Tip. I will try it out.

    Maybe another book idea Tips from Shoe.

    It could work.

    Cheers

  82. 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.

  83. It just comes down to — make sure you use the keywords in the ad! Generic, boring ads give you crap results! Period!

  85. 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 😉

  86. 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…

  87. […] thought the post by Shoemoney about his little arrow trick to increase Adwords CTRwas a joke…until I tried it myself. My CTR did go up! Shoemoney also had a nice article on 5 […]

  88. […] The nominations for the PPC catagory do provide some excellent tips for managing PPC campaigns.  Shoemoney’s post about creating an “arrow” within your PPC ad is particularly interesting, something I may try in the […]

  89. […] Google Adwords Arrow Trick To Increase Click Through Rates Jeremy Schoemaker, Shoemoney | 2/6/07 […]

  90. 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…

  91. […] Google Adwords Arrow Trick To Increase Click Through Rates …How Would YOU Like to Have Your Google AdWords Account Created, Optimized and Managed by One of the MOST Renowned Experts in the World? … […]

  93. […] Google Adwords Arrow Trick To Increase Click Through Rates Jeremy Schoemaker, Shoemoney | 2/6/07 […]

  94. […] Read Around: Look for special Adwords tricks and tips such as the “Arrow trick” to increase click through rates. There are many websites/forums that discuss the ins and outs of […]

  95. Фонарь. Джо снова пиарится по чёрному – как с ДМОЗом.

  97. 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)

  103. 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?

  105. 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

  108. […] Google Adwords Arrow Trick To Increase Click Through Rates […]

  113. 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

  115. There was someone or some company using this arrow trick with a lot of results showing up a couple weeks ago.

  117. 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.

  118. 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!

  119. 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

  120. 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?

  121. Thats a very cool trick and its always nice to see supporting data instead of some wild claim other people make 🙂

  122. I have tried this cool little trick with one of my Adsense campaigns and have noticed a 75% increase in CTR. Awesome little trick!

  124. 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.

  126. […] Eccovi il post: Google Adwords Arrow Trick […]

  129. Woah this is a really great ppc trick I had heard about this one in a forum somewhere but thanks for sharing with everyone!

  130. 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!

  131. 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 🙂

  132. 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

    1. 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.

  133. marketinghawks.com Blog » Blog Archive » Copy in a Parallel Universe - Envelope Teaser and AdWords Ad Copy says:

    […] AdWords Maven Jeremy Schoemaker has a neat little trick – his AdWords arrow. Check it out on his Shoemoney […]

  134. […] Here’s a little trick to increase your click-throughs if you are using Google Adsense. It simply highlights words to create a kind of shape in your add. Claims to increase clickthroughs. http://www.shoemoney.com […]

  136. 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 🙂

  137. 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.. 🙂

  138. 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.

  139. 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’ …

  141. 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!

  144. 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!

  147. very cool. I tried it, but I think I’m doing something wrong! Is it still working or has google fixed it by now.

  148. […] hur man kan optimera med intressanta tekniker sÃ¥ har Shoemoney skrivit ett kul inlägg om hur man kan skapa en “triangel” med nyckelordet i annonsen. Det är ingen breaker i resultat, men när man jobbar med stora volymer och jagar de sista […]

  151. Great little trick there, I’ve been using this one for a while by our websites and really works a little. Greetz, Monvesta

  152. To be honest, this is awesome! , I never knew that keyword function ever existed….that’s going to be quite useful!

    Thanks ! 🙂

  154. Thanks, this will most certainly come in handy. Any idea if DKI works for the target URL as well?

  158. Wow, you got a nice trick there, that will sure come handy to me, thanks.I’m trying it right now

  159. What a great, clever little trick. I’m definitely going to try this one out. Thanks.

  163. 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.

  164. 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.

  165. 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 🙂

  167. 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.

  168. 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

  170. That’s a nice tips. It’s important to increase our knowledge about keywords so we’ll earn unlimited profits.

  171. […] Google Adwords Arrow Trick To Increase Click Through Rates […]

  173. 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.

  175. Never seen this before, thanks for sharing and thanks for some nice tips.

  176. This is a neat little trick! I’ve never heard of it before, but will definitely try it out on my next campaigns. Thanks.

  177. […] bolded dynamic keywords. Whilst the experiment is flawed in several key ways, it’s worth a read. http://www.shoemoney.com/2007/02/06/…through-rates/ If the quality score of your keyword is low, it will not be used as a dynamic keyword, even when […]

  178. That’s a very good way to increase your revenue from a AdWords campaign. Going to use this for my new campaigns!

  179. That’s an excellent tip, was searching for google adwords improving tips when I came across your’s I was sold 🙂

  181. Neat tip! I’m going to give this a try, hopefully I’ll have better results than normal 🙂 Thanks for sharing!

  182. hmm … not convinced im afraid…. i tend to think that anything under a 2% CTR is pretty much a waste of time.

  184. Thats simply amazing.. You simply rock..This is dyanmic keyword insertion I guess..

  185. 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

  186. 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

    1. I have never use adword. I guess I will use it in sometime in the future and it certain a good tips

      1. 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

  187. I think that that’s a brilliant little trick. I honestly wish I had found this sooner. Nice one mate.

  188. 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.

    1. 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?

  190. 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 .

  191. 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

  192. Good trick to the adwords. But it must be analyzed the trick work for all of the adwords champaign ?

    1. 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.

  193. we used this trick several times with many website, it works really good. Thanks for sharing.

  195. Excellent tactic. I could see how that would cause your click through rates go up.

  197. 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

  200. 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? 🙂

  201. 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.

  203. That’s relally interesting. I’ll try. But I’m still having problems with the keywords tool.

  206. […] Google Adwords Arrow Trick To Increase Click Through Rates – ShoeMoney […]

  208. […] at .40% CTR where the normal is at .19%. So this was actually over a 200% increase in CTR. – Shoemoney Include keywords in your […]

  209. 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 🙂

  210. […] blogging tips (and the tips are really valuable information for a new blogger like me that time). Shoemoney was listed top of business bloggers on one of my friend’s blog list (the high pagerank amused me […]

  214. Sounds like a crazy deal, but I will give it a whirl!

    There is no telling where Twiitter will take us.

    Thx!

  216. thanks for the great trick, eventhought I’m new on internet marketing but that theary was briliant

  220. 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.

  223. 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.

  226. 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

  233. 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.

    1. 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.

  234. adword campign is very easy to make cash.one thing one must increase CTR so that cost of campign will reduce

    1. 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

  236. What a great Tips of adwords tools.I will tried to use it………………
    Thanks for sharing the nice info.

  237. Shoe when can you come down to my house in australia and teach me how to finally make some money for real on the net , i’m sick of buying shit that gets me know where, i really need your help
    thanks Paul

  238. […] The arrow technique:  Popularized by Shoemoney. […]

  239. Good job, really nice site, keep continue, I would really prefer Mixx for others.

  243. Case Study: How ShoeMoney Built a Million Dollar Internet Empire From Lincoln, Nebraska | Internet Business Plan - Ivan Walsh teaches you how to Develop Your Online Business says:

    […] And, of course, when you see how they do it, you come back for more. This article, for example, shows how to increase AdSense/Adwords click throughs rates with a very clever trick. […]

  246. Thanks for showing us this neat little trick to cause a rather different outcome, than Google would’ve expected! The arrow still eludes me as to what symbols were put there to create it… just a slow learner here. GD.

  248. Wonderful tips, I am particularly interested in tip 13, how do I add the trade mark TM into the title ads. Is this legal to do in Google Adwords Ads?

  249. Great Adwords tip! I´m sure it will increase my campaings 🙂 Thanks

  250. […] Google Adwords Arrow Trick To Increase Click Through Rates – 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?”…. […]

  251. What’s the significance of the pointing to the right? Just wondering the psychology of it, because if it’s an arrow, it would seem to direct the reader’s attention to what is to the right of the ad, not the ad itself. Is the human mind naturally drawn towards arrows or something?

  254. […] found ShoeMoney´s "arrow ad" strategy to be perfect for maxing out ad CTR in practically any vertical. I don´t recall any situation […]

  256. hey jeremy,
    great tips as always! will be implementing for sure. keep the value comin gmy friend.
    thanks, matty.

  259. This is my first visit here, thankshttp://tycooncashflowpracticability.com

  260. […] Shoemoney points out that he uses a trick to help his CTR in campaigns by creating an ad loosely resembling an arrow: …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 […]

  265. 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.

  268. Good advice in regards to increasing conversions. But I knew this already (ha ha!). Just to say, it does actually help in improving conversions, in contary to what some have said around the web.

  269. Interesting trick to get clicks, as the arrow attracts obviously more attention than the simple text. But as Josh points out, what is the improvement (if any) in the cost of conversion?

  270. Great stuff man, it’s amazing how much of an impact that this can have on your campaign and costs. Good point about the mentioning that it’s the conversions that matter most – I’ve had many ads with ridiculously high CTR that didn’t convert at all.

  271. Thanks for sharing this trick. I will implement this on one of my ad copy and see if I can see similar improvement on performance.

  272. Thanks for this good information. It was really helpul for me. I will recommend this trick also to my firends.

  276. Thanks for the “arrow” tip. I have always got great CTR’s when using the main keyword in the title, headline 1 and the main url. I will test this out- sounds like a brilliant idea!

    Thanks again

  279. I never noticed the arrow before, but this is something we have tried (and still do) and we do notice the ads which performe the best, are the ‘arrowd’ ads.
    We only did it to help when people are ‘scanning’ the ad, didnt realise it was cutting edge!
    😉

  281. Google has an automatic progression function on keywords where it automatically uses a “sub” or a substitute word if there are too many characters. For example, I put a bid on “Bon Jovi” and “The Mighty Lemondrops” to send ringtone offers so in AdWords, it should show like this:

  284. Download the Text Ad Testing Master’s Guide (Plus, The Best of the Q&A) | The ClickEquations Blog says:

    […] […]

  285. How do you target the landing pages depending on what keyword {keyword} being used? If the Adwords ad show Jay-Z is it possible to automatically go to for example yourdomain.com/Jay-Z and another landing pages for MJ ad.

  286. […] an AdWords Amateur, I discovered the ShoeMoney Arrow Ad trick which I´ve found to be extremely effective even if it flies in the face of our panelist […]

  287. Its got to be mentioned that the reason for the higher click through rate (CTR) is the use of Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI)

  288. 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.

  292. Zikbay.com » Case Study: How ShoeMoney Built a Million Dollar Internet Empire From Lincoln, Nebraska says:

    […] And, of course, when you see how they do it, you come back for more. This article, for example, shows how to increase AdSense/Adwords click throughs rates with a very clever trick. […]

  293. Interesting.. thanks for sharing, will definitely give this one a try!

  294. […] positive, and not thinking about how much better things could be. I was heavily influenced by this ShoeMoney article, which drove how I managed paid search accounts at that time, and while I think Jeremy’s […]

  295. Un truco curioso para aumentar el CTR de tus anuncios de texto en Google Adwords - Marketing de Guerrilla en la Web 2.0 says:

    […] presente en la parte de publicidad online un efecto curioso que descubrí hace poco leyendo el blog inglés de Shoemoney. Se trata de un pequeño truco para aumentar el CTR de los anuncios de texto en Google Adwords. Un […]

  297. […] 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 […]

  298. Oh my goodness! Incredible article dude! Thank you, However I am experiencing problems with your RSS. I don’t understand why I am unable to subscribe to it. Is there anybody else getting identical RSS issues? Anyone that knows the answer will you kindly respond? Thanks!!

  299. I have been using the same thing on my ads.
    It although increase CTR and also Ad Placements. I am very happy with the results.

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