Of course, a decent ad should be non-fiction in that it should adhere to factual, substantiated claims to achieve truth in advertising.

But the ad writer with the heart of a dramatist — the one who understands how to paint word pictures, create a scene, and tell a short-form story with maximum clarity — will consistently outperform the “just the facts” writer focused on reporting features and benefits and deal sweeteners while cramming in keyword phrases.

And one of the keys to painting vivid mental images in the minds of prospective customers lies in what modern fiction writing calls “active description.”

What Is Active Description?

While a Victorian novelists might have easily spent several paragraphs or pages describing a street or a house or even a character, the modern writer understands that his audience will simply stop reading or start skipping pages after a sentence or two (or less!) of static description.

The modern writer has got to keep the action going with characters doing things, speaking to each other, etc.  So description has to be worked into the action and dialogue.

And the same holds true for PPC Ads, with active description routinely beating out static reporting.  Here’s an example:

Compare the static description on the first line of the old champion, “Bold & Clear — No Cell Phones,” with the action-packed, image-inducing language of the New Champion, “Post Your ‘No Cell Phone’ Policy.”

The winning ad causes you to see yourself using their signs in exactly the way you’re hoping to use them.  And so that bit of active description helped it boost CTR performance by 155%

And then there’s this ad:

Again, the winner uses action-packed, image-inducing language — “Get Exposed to College Scouts” — while the losing ad uses static adjectives and nouns: “College Basketball Recruiting.”

This time, the active description helped boost CTR by 39%

And finally, there’s this recent win:

“Rip Your Music into MP3 Quickly” — yeah, I can see myself doing that.

“Free [software] download” — um, it’s just a static thing.  No action. No imagery.  No way to see yourself doing anything, really.

And again, the active description wins, this time by 34%

So take a tip from the fiction writers of the world, and keep your PPC ads action-packed with active description.

Ooh baby, I’m hot just like an oven

I need some [CTR] lovin’

And baby, I can’t hold it much longer

It’s getting stronger and stronger…

Click through rate is an important metric to consider when optimizing any PPC account. And with Valentine’s Day right around the corner, it would only seem fitting to crack open a fresh bottle of wine and allude to Marvin Gaye with some CTR Healing. Right…? Regardless of whether or not you think I’m crazy at this point, I’d like to focus on click through rate and offer up a few ways to improve CTR in your own accounts.

What is click through rate?

Essentially, click through rate is the rate at which users click on your PPC ads. This value is calculated by taking the total number of ad clicks divided by the number of impressions that particular ad received. CTR can therefore be an excellent way of gauging the relevancy between your ads and keywords.

Why is click through rate important?

Improving click through rate can achieve a variety of things, but most importantly, optimizing CTR can lead to higher ad positions and cheaper click costs. We know this because CTR is one of the elements the AdWords system considers when calculating Quality Scores. Therefore, since AdRank = Quality Score x CPC bid, higher QS’s allow advertisers to maintain optimal ad positions for less cost. So if saving money and gaining more visibility are of interest to your business and/or client, then this article is for you.

Improving CTR With Keywords

• Choose Relevant Keywords

The first step to achieving an optimal click through rate is making sure you’re targeting only relevant terms. Your keywords should be closely related to your landing page and the product/service being offered. If you are keeping a close eye on your Quality Scores, this can be a quick way to determine the relevancy of a given keyword. If Quality Scores are low, you may want to consider finding additional keyword ideas using the AdWords Keyword Tool.

• Capitalize on Long-Tail Keywords

As marketers, it’s our job to find the lowest cost option for our businesses or clients. Overly broad terms can be good if you have the budget to back them and want to generate more traffic, but they can also be very competitive and expensive as well. Therefore, focusing on long-tail keywords instead of broad terms can help boost your CTR. With a long-tail keywords, there are far fewer searches on those terms, but it becomes much more likely that users who search on those terms will be interested in exactly what you’re offering and click on your ad when they occur.

• Create Tightly-Themed Keyword Groupings

Keywords should be grouped according to similar themes, which can play a big role in achieving optimal click through rates. By segmenting your keywords into closely related groupings, this allows your ad groups to work as efficiently as possible because you can then create targeted ad copy that relates to the keywords in a particular grouping. Not only will effective keyword groups improve your Quality Scores and save you some cheddar, but they will also yield higher click through rates as well. No wonder this is considered a best practice!

Improving CTR With Text Ads

• Extend Headlines

One easy way to increase CTR is to manipulate your ads to show extended headlines. To do this, your ad needs to first appear above the organic results. Secondly, the first description line must end with a period. Google will then take the ad’s description line 1 and append it to the headline, as demonstrated in the example above. Although this tactic isn’t guaranteed to increase your click through rate, it certainly helps your ad to stand out from the crowd and entice more clicks.

• Incorporate Credibility Symbols

Credibility symbols are also a great way to improve click through rates, which include the Trademark ™ and Registered ® symbols. Not only will they make your text ads appear more professional, but they can also help establish consumer trust and confidence surrounding your brand. To include the Trademark symbol, hold down Alt and type 0153. For the Registered symbol, hold down Alt and type 0174.

• Enable Ad Extensions

Ad extensions are another great way to improve upon existing click through rates. Essentially, these help your ads become more visible by taking up more real estate on SERPs, but they also enable your ads to reveal some of the specific products/services offered by your business or client. This tactic can improve CTRs because your customers can more easily find what they are looking for by simply clicking on the particular link they’re interested in. For more information, check out our series on ad extensions.

• Include a Call To Action

One of the most important components you can add to your text ads is an effective call to action. Typically, this is included in the second description line and encourages viewers to act in a certain way after viewing your ad. In other words, it indicates what the user should do next and therefore encourages higher click through rates. A few examples of solid calls to action include: Buy Now, Apply Online, and Get More Info.

• Specify Incentives

Offering incentives directly through your ad copy can also boost your click through rates. Ads containing incentives usually receive more attention simply because consumers are always looking for deals. For example, you might try and offer an exclusive discount or free shipping to those who see your ad. Regardless, incentives like these act as excellent bait and helps improve CTR.

As you can see, there are many ways to go about increasing CTR in your own accounts. Be sure to stay tuned for Felicia’s post tomorrow on uploading negative keywords into Bing. Feel free to leave any commentary below, thanks for reading.

Here’s a recap of all the posts we covered this week for quick reference if you need it:

Ad Testing Best Practices (Dave)

Setting Up Ad Testing (Felicia)

Implementing ad Ad Test (Sarah)

Ad Testing Challenges (Kayla)

If you have any questions, comments or additional tips about ad testing, we’d love to hear from you. Feel free to reach out to us in the comments section below. Otherwise, happy ad testing and thanks for reading!

Challenges

• Getting Started

It’s probably obvious based on the previous three installments in the series that one of the major challenges in ad testing comes with the decision to ad test in the first place. You need to follow all the best practices, set everything up correctly and then run the ad test effectively and accurately. Knowing all that work is needed to run a successful test can send some PPC managers running for the hills to focus on slightly simpler tasks. Keep in mind, those simpler tasks may keep your KPI in line for now, but eventually you will begin to see the effects of ignoring significant ad testing for higher performance in your ad groups. Trust me, it won’t be pretty. Strap on the above-mentioned hard hat and make it happen.

• Waiting It Out

We now know that allowing your ad tests to receive enough traffic to determine a true performance winner is key when it comes to carrying out this account optimization. Calling the winner with too few visits to the contenders may lead the data analyst to make a decision on what could be a statistically even fight. This is definitely hard, especially when you get that instinctual feeling that you can tell for sure which ad version is the better one for your goals. I assure you, waiting until the whole pack reaches the finish line will be in the best interest of the account (and the client). When you can show complete stats on a performance snapshot where one ad statistically beats another out, you can rest a little easier applying the tested changes across similar ad groups.

• Pulling the Trigger

You put all the effort in and determined the parameters for your ad test, applied your experimental changes and kept best practices in mind and now you have enough traffic through your variable ads to make the call. Make it! If you have followed all the steps necessary and the data shows you a winner, then you have to trust your work. This can be a very difficult step for those of us with a “What If?” mentality (I’m just as guilty, I promise!), but you have to do it. You can see through the experimental data that the account will be better for it, so just pull the trigger.

Why It’s Important to Stick with It

This is plain and simple: the results are worth it. Click-through rate contributes to Quality Score as keyword relevancy increases and an increase in Quality Score can eventually lead to cheaper click costs for your account. Who can argue with that?

If for some reason you aren’t pro-cheaper clicks, consider the back end profits. Odds are, increased CTR after ad testing to find the best messaging and/or landing page-to ad-to keyword-to search query combinations possible, will result in increased leads, conversions or revenue for you or your client’s business.

PPC Hero readers, you are now armed with all you need to get 2012 started off on the right foot when it comes to ad testing in your accounts. Check back tomorrow for the full series wrap-up and if you haven’t already, the other three installments to the series.

You know we love to hear from you with every post, so tell us: what do you find the most challenging about PPC ad testing and how do you get yourself through it? Leave your stories and ideas in the comments section below! Thanks for reading!

"We accept your mission!"

In the third installment of our series, Ad Testing Made Easy, I’ll be talking about implementing your ad test. After reading Felicia’s post yesterday, I’m sure it’s safe to assume you accepted her mission and are ready to dig in and implement some ad testing. So, where do you start? Where do you end? This is your field guide to putting effective PPC ad testing into practice.

Step 1: Identify One Element To Test

After you’ve identified your control ad with Felicia’s help, you’ll need to identify one element (that’s right, ONLY one) to test. Why only one element? Because you’ll want to know what worked (or what didn’t). If you change more than one element from your control to your test ad, you won’t be able to pinpoint what searchers were reacting to. Here are some suggestions for elements to test:

• Landing pages (would only recommend testing this for conversion-focused ad testing, as this obviously won’t effect CTR)
• Call-to-action
• Promotions
  • Pricing information vs. generic product benefits
  • Test two benefits against each other, like free shipping and bulk discounts
  • Tone of ad (emotional vs. statistical appeal)

I have a couple of comments on writing your test ads. Ideally you’ll want to keep the number of ads per ad group to two or three, and I’d strongly recommend keeping this to two. As I mentioned previously, the fewer variables, including the number of ads,you introduce into your ad testing, the better.

Step 2: Uploading New (and Old) Ads

In both Google and Bing, you’ll want to start your testing with a clean, sparkly slate. In order to do this, you’ll need to pause all existing ads in your ad groups (even your control), and upload both your control ad and your testing ad as new. In order to get a copy of your control ad to successfully upload, you might need to change one minor facet of the ad, like adding a slash at the end of your display URL, just something minor that will make it seem unique. Don’t change any text of course, otherwise that defeats the purpose of using your proven control.

Step 3: Hide in the Bushes and See What Happens

No good spy can remain on the scene for the duration of their mission! After you implement your ad test, you’ll need to simply let the ads run untouched until you have statistically valid data. What does this mean? You need to let your ads collect enough data so that you can determine your winning ad with a high level of confidence.

There is no set benchmark for statistically valid data. Maybe for your ads you determine this to be 200 clicks for each ad, or 1,000 impressions. Or maybe, it’s simply a length of time, like a full month. If you want some more in depth help on creating statistical validity in your ad testing, Jessica wrote a very thorough post on this, and I highly recommend taking the time to read it.

There are also a number of good (and free) online tools to help you determine whether or not you have collected enough data to determine your winning ad. Basically, you can use these tools to enter your clicks, impressions, etc. and your statistical success will be calculated for you. Check out this PPC Ad Testing Tool from WebShare.

Step 4: Spying Your Winner

After you’ve gathered enough data to declare one ad your winner, now what? Well, umm…more ad testing! The idea is to constantly test ads to see what works best in your account. If your control ad wins the first test, choose another element to test to see if another variation of your control outperforms the original. Ad testing is more or less a never-ending process, especially when you’re only changing one element at a time. But ultimately in continuing to do ad testing, you’ll increase not only your engagement with your account, but the account’s long-term success.

I know you’re ready to jump in and implement your ad testing, but don’t put away your spy gear yet. Check back tomorrow for Kayla’s post on the importance of ad testing, and some common challenges we’ve found when testing!

The Dossier

The most important part of ad testing besides following Dave’s best practices from yesterday is to identify your control ad.  This is going to be the best ad that is currently in your ad group.  Based on your goals for your account, the way you determine this can be slightly different.  If you are running an account for branding purposes only, click-through rate is a great metric to focus on.  Most accounts we have at Hanapin are focused on gaining conversions.  If this is the case, you do need to look at every metric like average position, conversion rate and number of conversions as well as if the ads have a high CTR.  Remember that a high CTR doesn’t always lead to conversions.  Lots of searchers may click and then just not convert. (Dealing with this is another issue and Rob can help you with that here!)  Be sure that you are giving all of your metrics a fair shake down before blowing up the ad associated with them.

Mission: Beat Bing

I traveled to Chicago last summer for a seminar hosted by Bing.  We asked if you could truly run an A/B test for your ads in adCenter. Their answer: the system will always pick the best ad so just “trust the system.”  Well friends, this super PPC spy doesn’t like to trust the system.  I want a plan with some results!   Again, ask yourself this…. Would Ethan Hunt trust the system?  NO!  So you shouldn’t either.  So, find your control ad by running your ad performance report and sorting out your metrics.  Write a new ad and write a duplicate of the control ad.  You will be uploading this ad again as a fresh ad.  By uploading the control again, you are giving adCenter the chance to let it choose the ad it likes the most.  There is one trick to uploading the control back into adCenter – make sure that you change something in the new control.  If you pause the old control and upload it exactly as is, adCenter thinks that it’s a duplicate ad.  Our suggestion is to add a backslash “/” to the end of the display url.

Mission: Get Google

AdWords breaks down a little easier when it comes to ad interrogations… You still need to find your control and write some new ad copy.  But ad settings in AdWords are the key.  Just set your control and newly written ads to rotate evenly and Google will take care of the rest of the dirty work.  Of course you have to do the clean up by sorting through all of the great data that you have collected, but that’s a small price to pay to gain more conversions!

Planning the Heist

Here are the quick tips for setting up your excel spreadsheets to determine your best ad performers:

1. Export data from the platform with a date range of at least 3 months.  This should give you enough data to make an informed decision.  If your ads don’t have your 200/1000 clicks or impressions, you are not ready to engage in this mission.
2. Filter by ad group so that you have all ads together.  This will make comparing them easier.
3. Create a column for ad status (new ad, permanently paused ad, control) as well as 2 columns for text length (=len(cell number)).  This will help you sort what you actually need to upload and also benchmarks all the work that you have completed!
4. Add in rows right into the spreadsheet to write your new ad.  This way you can easily drag down your campaign, ad group, display url and destination url information.

Remember to pause all current ads in the ad group before you upload your new ones!  This eliminates confusion when looking in the interface.  A quick tip on this is to pause in the editors, synch and then ad the new test in.  Since ad testing is performed in so many phases, it is wise to keep a spreadsheet of vital information.  Your benchmarks, when you started, stopped, what was paused, what was added, how long the test ran for, etc.  Any information you can add in to help you keep organized is well worth it!

Now that you have the perfect set up for your testing, find out how to implement these tests and how to evaluate your data tomorrow from Sarah.  Congratulations on a successful mission.  See?  Not so impossible after all!  This blog post will self destruct in 20 seconds… (unless you read more PPC Hero articles now!)

Ad testing can be a tricky process to master. It requires both time and money, both of which are oftentimes difficult to come by as busy paid search managers. However, paying close attention to your ad testing efforts can ultimately lead to reduced click costs, enhanced click-through rates and more qualified traffic as a whole.

The staff here at PPC Hero is always looking for ways to help our readers understand and develop their accounts further, so we decided to focus our first blog series of the New Year on ad testing and how to get the most value from your efforts. So without further ado, here are some of our best practices you should consider using when testing your own ads!

Abide by the basics.

Are your keywords in the ad headline and/or description? If the answer is no, you should probably consider revisiting your ad text and find a way to include your keyword(s). Aside from contributing to higher Quality Scores, keywords placed in the ad copy itself can help your ad stand out from the rest because they appear in bold after a user’s search query triggers the ad on the SERPs. This can be a great way to boost your click-through rates.

Create a benchmark.

Before diving into an ad test, it is important to create a data benchmark. These will come in handy as you start testing more variations down the road. Documenting your testing efforts might seem overly meticulous, but it can be worthwhile in the long run because you’ll then have detailed access to the ads that worked and those that didn’t.

Be creative.

Ad testing is a great way for PPC managers to flex their creative muscles because the combinations are nearly endless. Although this may seem like a no-brainer, it is particularly important to keep this in mind: you’re competing against several other companies that offer the same products/services. As a result, part of your focus should include coming up with creative means to reach your audience. For example, you could try mentioning prestigious awards your company has received that demonstrate exceptional customer service. The possibilities are endless!

Keep the interfaces in mind.

In order to set up your ad test correctly, you need to be aware of which interface you are using. This is important because the ad rotation is treated differently in Google AdWords compared to Microsoft adCenter. In AdWords, advertisers have the ability to choose from three different ad rotation settings. However, in adCenter, the system will automatically deliver the best performing ad as they accrue data over time. To avoid running into this issue, it is best practice to create new ads to test against each other (create a new control ad to test against your experiment ad). This way, the historical performance of your control ad won’t affect the test itself and ultimately gives you a better set of data to work with. Felicia and Sarah will cover this concept in more detail later this week, so stay tuned.

Utilize statistical significance when making decisions.

One variation of the phrase describes statistical significance as the amount of evidence required to accept that an event is unlikely to have arisen by chance. In other words, the data will speak for itself when testing two or more things. Of course we can all have opinions as to which ads work better than others, but opinions alone can’t pinpoint a true winner. This is why it is important to use statistical significance to determine your best performing ads since the data is the only thing taken into account, free of bias.

Test only one element at a time.

Deciding which element to test can be a tricky situation because the combinations are nearly endless. This is why it becomes important to focus in on one element only for each test. Here are some elements all advertisers should be testing: headlines, descriptions, display URLs, punctuation and capitalization. For example, I could compare two different headlines against each other or two variations of a display URL. The sky is the limit here, just be sure to focus on one element with each test and leave the other components of the ad constant.

Use traffic flow to determine a healthy timeframe.

Traffic patterns vary from industry-to-industry and client-to-client. This is why it is important to determine what will be considered a sufficient timeframe or data set before launching your test. As a general rule of thumb, I use 200/1000 of a predetermined metric (typically clicks or impressions) to indicate the timeframe. If traffic tends to move slowly in my account, I would lean more towards the 200 mark. However, if traffic tends to move quickly, I would use a higher value (such as 1000) for my testing timeframe instead. Essentially, it all comes down to how long it takes the account to collect a sufficient data set, so choose wisely!

Never stop testing.

Always be on the lookout for new ideas to test because the combinations are nearly endless. If you’re having trouble finding new ideas to test in your ad copy, you can start tying in textual variations from your landing pages. You could also try doing some reconnaissance to find out what your competitors are highlighting/offering for additional ideas. So what are you waiting for? Test, test and test some more!

Be sure to tune in tomorrow for Felicia’s post on how to set up ad tests in Google and Bing! Thanks again for reading and feel free to leave any additional commentary/experiences below!

But before I list off everything that could probably be improved or might be worth testing, here are a few things that are well done, or at least OK:

• The orange “Button” on the lady’s head provides enough visual prominence to at least earn a glance.
• The “spot color” on her eyes then keeps your attention long enough to look at the headline.
• The headline is a semi-provokative question, directed at the viewer

So what do I think could be improved, or at least tested?

Well here’s how my version of “slice and dice” might be different than most.

Most people take the structural elements of the ads and use those for testing purposes — headline, displayed url, image, body copy.  Possibly they’ll count a Call to Action at the end of the body copy as a separate element.
And that works OK, except it gives you no clue as to what variations you should try for each of those elements.

So here’s what I’d suggest:

First figure out the main appeal of the ad

For this ad, the main appeal the main appeal seems to be curiosity: how old are you really?  Not how old the calendar says you are, but how old is your body?

But there are two ways to engage readers’ curiosity with this question:

1. worrying the audience that they’re older than their age, or
2. holding out hope that their bodies are younger than they think.

The example ad takes the first approach, but does it very mildly, both in the image and the headline.  So I’d want to test both the opposite approach (that of holding out hope) as well as variations of intensity for the worry approach.

Also, included in the idea of both hope and worry is the idea that prospects will not only learn their “real age” but also ways to influence it — how to keep the clock turned back for those whose bodies are younger than their years, or how to turn it back for those shocked to find out they’re really older than they think. So I might want to test whether or not the inclusion of messaging around “fix it” or “make it better” might improve CTR.

Next, look at credibility builders and “Point of Action Assurances”

In the example ad, the only credibility element is the “as seen on NBC’s Today Show” line in the body copy. And that’s OK, but there are stronger options available. This test has also been featured on Oprah and was partially created with the help of Dr. Oz.  Both of those are pretty heavy duty credibility builders for the right audience. It’s well worth testing to see if one or the other or some combination works best.

As for Point of Action Assurances, the main concern that might be killing the click probably concerns the test itself. Does the test require you to know medical info like, say, your blood pressure or cholesterol levels and such?  If it doesn’t, then a line about “easy questions you can answer in minutes” might be worth testing. Has it proved accurate? That kind of thing.

Often, simply addressing these kinds of “conversion killing” concerns can dramatically improve Click Through. And with a free test, the main concern is that it would take too long, be too complicated, or require information that’s not ready-to-hand, etc.  And that also brings to mind the idea of FREE.  The test is free, so it might be worth testing to see if adding some kind of “Free” statement to the ad doesn’t boost click through rates.

Often, simply addressing these kinds of “conversion killing” concerns can dramatically improve Click Through. And with a free test, the main concern is that it would take too long, be too complicated, or require information that’s not ready-to-hand, etc.  And that also brings to mind the idea of FREE.  The test is free, so it might be worth testing to see if adding some kind of “Free” statement to the ad doesn’t boost click through rates.

Each testable variation has its own hypothesis

With my take on “slice and dice” testing, the emphasis is on variations of persuasive approach, not on haphazardly creating variations of specific ad elements.  More importantly, each variation carry with it a hypothesis, which means that each test — even a negative test — provides added insight into your target market.

So if the “and do something about it” statements test negative, you’ve learned something valuable about what’s really motivating your audience, even if the test failed.

No, it’s not rocket science — but it IS scientific.

And for the curious, here’s what a few challenger ads might look like, if they were created using this approach:

So what about you?  Are you testing scientifically, or are you just throwing variations against your target’s Facebook wall and seeing if they click?

Imagine you have to write a Facebook ad for the Christian organization, Focus on the Family

Now, if you’re any good at writing ads, you’re probably already asking me: who am I writing this ad to?  Who’s the customer?  Especially if it’s a Facebook Ad.

But chances are you’d settle for a far less effective answer than you deserve, even when writing for an advertising platform universally known for its ability to hyper-target prospects.

And that would inevitably hurt your ad.

It would hurt you ad because all great ads have to be written for someone specific.  Not a demographic, or even a psychographic, but a specific prospect.  This is so important that some writers go to the point of creating a fictional character, or persona, in order to better write to the specific prospect of any given customer segment.

Want to see what kind of difference that makes? Take a look at an actual ad for Focus on the Family that I found on my wife’s Facebook page:

Needless to say, this is not an ad aimed at men. Or married couples without children. Or even mom’s of teenagers, really.

Now, I don’t actually know how Focus on the Family is targeting their ads, but I would imagine that this one is targeted to married women with kids and possibly with some Christian affiliation.

But notice what they did here: they didn’t have a generic ad for Focus on the Family.  Instead they appealed to a mother’s instinct to make the holiday’s special for her kids, compounding:

1. age,
2. sex & marital status
3. interest, and
4. holiday appeals

all combined and compounded into creating one tightly focused ad.

I might argue for a more visually striking image and stronger headline, but the point is that a copywriter’s ability to best optimize the image and headline starts with an understanding of the prospect.

It all sounds kind of obvious when you see it in black and white, but a lot of Facebook advertisers goof this stuff up quite regularly.  And like most things advertising, there are both basic and advanced applications of these things.  So if you’re interested in getting the basics right and then moving onto advanced applications, the best book available for learning this stuff is Killer Facebook Ads by Marty Weintraub.

I got to meet Marty last fall at SES San Francisco, while also managing to talk myself into a free copy of his book. And as Marty handed the book to me, he said that he was particularly proud of Chapters 5 and 6, especially Chapter 6 on “Mastering Compound Targeting.”

As you might imagine, I couldn’t wait to tear into that Chapter, but I was also a bit  curious, since the book was on creating “Killer” facebook ads, and yet the author’s favorite chapter was not the one expressly titled “Creating Killer Facebook Ads”; it was the previous chapter on Compound Targeting. Hmmm…

Of course, as soon as I finished the chapters on “Guerilla User Targeting Checklists” and “Compound Targeting,” I understood exactly why this was the case — it’s the same reason the actual Focus on the Family ad probably kicked your imaginary ad’s butt:

Every great ad has to be written for a specific someone.

And I would even add to that, “In a specific situation.”  As importantly, this has to be determined BEFORE you can start maximizing your image, headline, body copy, etc.

So how are your ads being written for?

If you can only tell me demographic info when answering this question, might I suggest you get yourself a copy of Killer Facebook Ads and start learning:

• Guerilla Targeting Methods for squeezing out targeting info that’s not a simple check box away on Facebook’s ad targeting interface
• Compound Targeting Techniques such as using age, interest, and gender mashups to create more powerfully specific ads?
• AND specific image, headline, and copywriting techniques for creating those “Killer Facebook Ads” themselves

It’s a great book and comes with my highest recommendations.  Thank you, Marty, for sharing your knowledge and expertise.

In case you need a refresher, or an easy reference point to all our series posts this week, here are links to each of the posts:

Rockin’ Around the Holiday Keyword Research Tree – Sarah

Have Yourself A Merry Little Account Structure – Kayla

All I Want For Christmas Is For My Ads To Show! – Felicia

Oh Come, All Ye Awesome Holiday Landing Pages – Dave

Hopefully this is everything you need to know to get started on your holiday PPC planning! If you have any tips of your own to add, feel free to share them in the comments below. Thanks for reading and we wish you a happy and successful holiday season.