When you think of writing successful ads for Google Adwords, the first, customary notion is to craft creative copy.
But how is creative truly defined? Writing can be very subjective and complex and understanding what will yield more clicks is not an exact science. Or, so goes the common thought.
Through years of in-depth research and insights, we’ve found that taking a mathematical approach to ad copy can produce greater returns. Since August 2008, we’ve tested over 500,000 ad copies in 12 different retail categories to develop actionable insights we can use to write ads that click.
What are the fundamental principles of this approach?
Hypothesize to Create Action
The combination of your own market knowledge and insights into your targeted users can lead to important data points on demographics and behavior. When and where will they see your ad? What are their exact needs or wants? You must peek inside the thought process of your user. Once you’ve uncovered the specific data to answer these queries, you can better infer their specific behavioral needs, apply it to your brainstorming process, and use it to craft copy that prompts users to take action.
Test, Test, Test
As previously mentioned, you have to continually test creative to find out what works and what doesn’t. Claude Hopkins, Author of Scientific Advertising, says, “The compass of accurate knowledge directs the shortest, safest, cheapest course to any destination.” By using consistent A/B testing and then recording and analyzing the results, you can unlock the creative model that evokes the most response from your users and employ it as a fixed practice in the writing process.
Evaluate Your Results
By looking at key metrics and KPIs such as CTR and impressions, you can glean and understand exactly why a certain ad performed better than another. What behavioral or emotional response does each result exhibit? What was it about a particular ad that evoked a higher actioned response? The answers you uncover must influence the next set of ads you write. Make sure no personal affinity for certain ads comes into play during the evaluation process.
By taking a mathematical approach using these insights from our ongoing NetElixir Retail Intelligence Unit, you can find the math behind the message that leads to exponentially greater CTR for your ads.
