Copywriting Posts from the Internet Marketing Blog
Win of the Week: 156% Increase in CTR from Following the Rules
Which of the two ads below do you think got a higher click-through rate (CTR)? Make your decision, then scroll down to discover the answer. PPC Ad #1PPC Ad #2 To help make your decision, suppose for a moment that you are a business owner who wants to promote your business at a major convention.
And suppose you're looking for a place to print up some promotional banners for your booth. Which ad would earn your click -- and potentially your business?In this case, ad number two is the winner. It was written by "SuperchargeYourAds," and it increased CTR by 156%. Where the original ad was getting 1 click, the new ad is getting 2.56 clicks.I find this week's contest interesting because it validates many ad writing principles I've covered in my Win of the Week column. Here are a few rea... > Read more
Win of the Week: To Be Unorthodox or Conformist, That Is the Question
Today, I'm featuring what may be the biggest win in BoostCTR's brief history. It's certainly the biggest win that's been featured in a Win of the Week column.Since the difference between the two ads is so big, it should be easy to pick the winner, right? Well, maybe. Looks -- and gut-level responses -- can often be deceiving.
Nevertheless, take a look at the two ads below and see if you can pick the winner. PPC Ad #1PPC Ad #2 To help make your decision, suppose for a moment that you were a college student looking to rent some college textbooks. Which ad would you be more likely to click on? Which one reaches into the mind of the college student and gets her to click?In this case, ad number one is the winner. It was written by "ctrmaven," and it increased CTR by an astounding 581%... > Read more
Win of the Week: Clarity and Attention to Detail Increase CTR by 86%
Studying new winning ads is always fascinating because of the variety of products and services for which we're optimizing ad copy.Every week, there is a new win ... in a new market ... for a new product. And yet, in spite of this variety and "newness," the principles of good ad writing prove themselves over and over again.
With that in mind, which of the two ads below do you think performed better? The headlines and the URLs are the same. Only the body copy is different. Which approach do you think worked best? PPC Ad #1PPC Ad #2 I suppose it's not too difficult to pick the winner. The grammatical errors make it easy to spot the losing ad. Ad number two is the winner. It was written by "SwayamDas," and it increased CTR by 86%.So why did the new ad win? Here are a few reasons why..... > Read more
Win of the Week: Use the Language Your Searchers Are Using
Which of the two ads below do you think performed better? The headlines are quite distinct, and the body of each ad is fairly different as well. The URLs are the same. Which approach do you think worked best? PPC Ad #1 PPC Ad #2 This ad contest is interesting because the ads are quite different, yet the difference in CTR is relatively modest.
In this particular contest, the new winner is ad number two. The winning ad was written by "ctr_guru," and it increased CTR by 31%, which is about the average increase we see for all contests at BoostCTR. Where the old ad was getting 10 clicks, the new ad is getting 13.1 clicks. So why did the new ad win? I have a few theories... 1. The winning ad uses a strong keyword phrase in the t... > Read more
Win of the Week: Subtle Changes Make a Big Difference in CTR
Which of the two ads below do you think performed better? Both used the same title text and URL (which is why the URL is not included in the images below). The body copy is the only difference between the two ads. Look closely and you'll notice the ads are quite similar. They include the same basic ideas, the same numbers.
They both include an exclamation point at the end of the second line of body copy. And yet, despite their similarities, one of these ads increased CTR by 111%. Can you guess which one? PPC Ad #1 PPC Ad #2 Because of the similarities, it's harder than normal to guess the correct winner. It's unusual to see such a big difference between two ads that are so similar. Alright, enough suspense. In this particular contes... > Read more
Win of the Week: Clarity, Specificity, and Urgency Produce 115% Increase in CTR
Which of the two ads below do you think performed better? Both used the same URL, but the titles and body copy are significantly different. PPC Ad #1 PPC Ad #2 Here's another way to think about it: If you were searching for "horror movies," which ad do you think you'd click? Make your decision then scroll down for the answer.
In this particular contest, the new winner is ad number two. The winning ad was written by "ctr_guru," and it increased CTR by 115%. So why did the the new ad perform so much better and attract more than twice as many clicks as the original ad? Let's take a look... 1. The title copy of the original ad is fairly vague. "Horror Movies" lacks specificity. Am I going to be able to watc... > Read more
Win of the Week: Designing a Better PPC Ad
If you were going to write a PPC ad promoting the opportunity to run your own graphic design contest, how would you write your ad? That was the question facing the BoostCTR writer who wrote the winning ad in the contest below. Take a look at both ads and see if you can pick the winner: PPC Ad #1 PPC Ad #2 In case you're unfamiliar with 99designs.
com, they provide graphic design services through contests. You pay a fee to host the contest. Graphic designers submit their designs. They are competing against each other to win the contest and collect the award fee. Businesses who host the contests can then pick their favorite design from all those that have been submitted. With that as background, make your decision and keep reading for ... > Read more
Win of the Week: Spelling It Out to Increase CTR by 65%
How would you like to see a sequence of ads instead of just one winner and one loser? This will give you better insight into the reasons why one ad wins ... and other ads lose. With that in mind, I'm showing you four ads instead of two. These ads paint a more accurate picture of the BoostCTR contest process.
It is not uncommon for the first two or three submissions to lose to the control ad. After repeated attempts to "dethrone" the control ad, a new winner is discovered. Such is the case below. The first two ads that were submitted by our writers did NOT win. These two ads lost to the control ad by 22% and 26% respectively. Take a look... Losing Challenger #1 Losing Challenger #2 Since I bought a pair of Vibram Fivef... > Read more
Which Ad Won? New PPC Ad Boosts CTR by 52%
Today, I'm featuring another contest from the ongoing optimization of the BoostCTR campaign running on AdWords. I'm doing this for two reasons: Reason #1. It's important that you know "we eat our own dog food." Which is to say, we follow the same ad optimization process that we recommend to our clients.
Reason #2. We have now completed a few BoostCTR contests. So I can show you how the ads have evolved over the last couple months. With that in mind, let's take a quick look-back at the very first contest we ran in this campaign... PPC Ad #1 PPC Ad #2 In this first contest, the long copy destroyed the short copy. Ad #2 was written by "chewiness," and it increased CTR by a stunning 326% -- more than triple the origina... > Read more
10 SEO Copywriting Myths, Mistakes and Conversion-Sucking Monsters
Is your Web copy only so-so?Maybe your pages aren't positioning in Google and Bing, and you're not sure what you're doing wrong. Or prospects are finding your site, but they're not taking action.Either way, you know something is wrong. You just may not know what it is.If your SEO copy isn't making you money, it could be that your writing has fallen prey to one or more of the 10 most common SEO copywriting myths, mistakes and conversion-sucking monsters.
Here are the typical copywriting boo-boos I see:Writing to a certain keyword density percentage.My all-time, top, #1 myth! Once upon a time, SEO experts knew that a 5.5% keyword density would gain a top spot in Alta Vista. Guess what – it's not 1999 anymore. Yes, include your keyphrases on the page. But don't write for a mythical keyphras... > Read more
