Sep
15
How To Quadruple Your AdWords Conversions In Just Under 20 Seconds
To the nine of you reading this blog who happen to be experts in AdWords, you can skip this post. For those of you who have no intentions of launching an AdWords campaign ever, read it anyway. The lessons extend into other areas.
Because of the fan socks, I get a lot of email with “socks” in the copy. Most of the fan mail I get now starts like this:
“I know it’s not fan socks, but…”
This means that a lot of the contextual advertising I get in my gmail is sock related. Since I like socks, this isn’t quite as ridiculous as it could be.
The other day, I got an ad that read “The Funkiest Toe Socks” and since I dig funky toe socks, I clicked through. Bear in mind, this came in through my business email and I was busy doing, um, businessy things. But the promise of the funkiest toe socks was too much temptation.
I click through. The page takes forever to load. (Yes, I know THIS page takes forever to load, but I’m not advertising in your email, am I?) I’m waiting. I’m waiting. I’m waiting. Somewhere deep down in my subconscious, I feel that the longer I wait, the better the socks will be.
Finally, there it is. The left sidebar loads, then the right. Then the header. Then, finally, after much ado and excitement, the content!
It says:
“For men’s socks, click here.
For women’s socks, click here.
For kids’ socks, click here.
For dog socks, click here.”
Note the startling lack of toe socks.
Other than completely offending my sensibilities with the worst SEO in the history of the internet, I realized that I had been lied to. I was promised toe socks and toe socks had not been delivered.
Therefore, the lesson, as it applies to AdWords:
If you sell more than one product, NEVER, EVER, EVER send clickers to your home page. Send them to EXACTLY what they clicked on.
Don’t advertise in gmail. The contextual relevance is generally horrendous, and the likelihood of targeted traffic is so low it’s stupid. Spend your money on active search. Put your ad dollars in advertising ON GOOGLE when people search for EXACTLY WHAT YOU SELL.
Bonus lesson for people not running AdWords campaigns:
Regardless of what you do, at some point you’re probably going to advertise in some capacity. You want to make sure that what the customer arrives at, whether it’s your website or your call-in line or your brick and mortar location, is exactly what you promised them.
Create maximum flow.
Do not make your customer think, “Did I click on the right thing?” or “What the hell am I supposed to do next?” or “Huh?” In fact, if you can avoid making your customer think at all, that’s even better. Create as seamless an experience as you can from where they came from to where they end up.
Consider this in a banner ad context. If you’re advertising on IttyBiz and your ad reads “Click here for the best fucking fan socks ever!” with a picture of, say, fan socks, your landing page should look the same. Same copy, same picture, same color scheme as the ad. Either make them feel like they’ve never left the original site or actively welcome them from the original site in your copy.
“Welcome to the super secret IttyBiz reader discount page! (Shh. Don’t Tell. It’s SUPER secret.)”
Not exactly the best line of copy ever written, but it’s a shitload better than “Click here for men’s socks”.
Naomi, great article. I’ll get straight to the point. I know you stopped selling your SEO book, but I’m willing to give my left testicle for a copy!
I don’t care about after sales support. I don’t care about the price (shoot, mark it up a bit to punish me for being so slow to act). But reading great posts like this one and not getting a copy of your book is kinda like seeing that cute girl every day that winks at me and teases me but won’t give me her number.
So Naomi, whaddya say? I promise I’ll call.
I’ve got to get into fan socks. I don’t mean it like it sounded.
Nobody is advertising against that term. I could be a fan sock millionaire!
Oh, that wasn’t what this was about, was it?
I WISH I had money to burn like that!!!! Every time someone clicks on that ad – the socks people are paying- and paying- and paying. You can’t be the first to not see toe socks and click away! (You wear socks but not shirts to work- Naomi, you are UNIQUE! That’s why we love you!)
Perry Marshall once said Adsense is the most expensive advertising on the planet. With stories like this, it’s easy to see why!
You wrote a book about SEO, stopped selling it, and now post about SEO but still refuse to sell the book.
I read your post that explains why you acted like that. But I don’t understand yet.
Great advice.
It’s simple.
She’s a filthy marketing whore.
Right Naomi? ;)
Google Adwords is not SEO. Google Adwords is the opposite of SEO. Google Adwords = buying clicks. SEO = optimizing your site for free traffic. Two entirely different ways to get traffic.
Although yes, Naomi *is* a filthy marketing whore.
Anyone who wants to try out Adwords would do well to go spend the $16 or whatever on Perry Marshall’s guide to Adwords. You can just get it on Amazon, it’s an actual book, with pages &c. It will save you so much damned money and aggravation.
Naomi
Great post! So many people get so into the nuance of AdWords that they forget how many people need the basic advice. Along the same lines, I NEVER use Dynamic keyword insertion, no matter what Perry Marshall says. If your structure is well defined your ads will all be very finely targeted and you can eliminate a lot of traffic that way. Also, I suggest ignoring Click through rate in favor of conversion rate. I often use language in my ads that disqualify people who are less likely to take the action I want.
“Not exactly… shitload better than…”
Please never stop saying it like it is. I just love your turn of phase, priceless!