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Adding Testimonials to Your PPC Ads Can Help Increase Click-Through RatesPosted by Amber on September 2, 2009 in Ad Texts |
One of my larger clients is a resort/casino here in Indiana. The resort truly is beautiful, but there have been many other resorts/casinos popping up in the Indianapolis area making for some good competition.
I typically like to include as many benefits in my PPC ad texts as possible. Whether a client is offering free shipping, or free returns, or even free estimates/quotes, those ads will typically get the higher click-through rate therefore helping to increase my Quality Score.
One thing I have tried here recently is putting in customer testimonials into my clients’ ad text. I pulled the testimonials right off their website and incorporated them into my Google ads. They’ve been running for almost a month now and one ad has a click-through rate of 9.33% which is 20% higher than the average of my other two ads.
A few other ads I’m testing with the testimonials in them have only been running for a few weeks, but have already exceeded the best performing ad in that ad group. It’s important when you’re testing ads to give them plenty of time to generate enough traffic for a statistically valid sample size. .
If you’re trying to test different messaging in your ads to increase your click-through rates, be sure to check your campaign settings and set your ad delivery settings to ‘rotate’ and not ‘optimize’. Having it set to optimize Google will show only your best performing ad which doesn’t allow you to test your other ads evenly.
Since Quality Score is mainly based off of your click through rates, I would recommend testing all kinds of different messaging in your PPC ads. Try looking at your competitors, and find benefits for your company that can set you apart. Try adding testimonials, offers, phone numbers etc. What may not work for one person may work well for another. It’s up to you to test it and try it out for yourself!
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September 2nd, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Hello Amber, first I would like to thank you for an informative post. I do not know if I would have ever thought of testimonials in ppc or not. I appreciate you sharing how it has improved your numbers. As a side note, I am originally from the Indy area and in fact spent 4 years of band camp at your beautiful facility at F….. L…
although it was kind of a run down old hotel at the time and not near what I hear it is today.
Once again, thank you for sharing.
David
September 6th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
Amber,
I have NEVER even thought about this, known about it or considered it. It’s nice to see a completely original post now days. (at least to me).
I’m in Real Estate and use AdWords a lot. I’ve been running pretty much the same stuff for about a year or more and it’s effective. However, lately I’ve been wondering how to double one of my metrics, either impressions, CTR, or conversion on my site. (lead capture).
I think the latter two have a real possibility and I have some ideas. But now I have one more idea.
Thanks,
Rob
September 12th, 2009 at 3:47 am
Having a quote in the adcopy is something I’ve never thought about but I’ll certainly try it out with the next test!
I think the premise may be similar to a recent adcopy test I ran for a client where I mentioned their BBB rating. The CTR pretty much doubled and I was able to get the QS to 10 for most of the big keywords. In this case, it was because all their competitors’ ads all said the same thing, ie “save with us,” “we’re the best,” etc so the BBB in big capped letters stand out and catches the eye and is a recognizable brand. Were the previous ads for this hotel running under similar competitive conditions?
It would also be interesting to see what kind of conversions ads with quotes have.
Anywho, thanks for the suggestion!
September 28th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
How about referencing testimonials in the ad copy, but not actually having the testimonial. Right now I am running an ad as follows: (part of the copy)
Free Consultation. See what our satisfied customers have to say…
How does that strategy compare with putting the testimonial in the ad itself?
So far I think the clickthrough is better than all my other ads, but I have a small sample so far.
Thanks,
David
September 29th, 2009 at 6:08 am
@David, I haven’t tried using text like, ’see what satisfied customers have to say’ in my ads. But it’s a good thought. I think it’s something you just have to try and see if it works better than the actual testimonial itself. Thanks!!