#1 Use Credibility Indicators

Include credibility indicators on your landing page such as testimonials, reviews, awards, social media information (Facebook likes, number of tweets, etc.), and seller ratings (on Google, this info is pulled from Bizrate and other rating sites).

Here are some specific ideas related to testimonials:

1. Use testimonials to reiterate your company’s core value propositions. For example, consider prominently featuring one extremely compelling testimonial, in larger or selectively bolded print, above a few smaller-print ones further down the page. Whether this featured testimonial is from CNN, NYT, or a particularly eloquent customer depends, of course, on your track record, business, etc.
2. In general, testimonials work better for emotional/personal/edible/retail items. Using citations in publications and expert opinions are better options for products like art, theater and software solutions.

#2 Incorporate Product Badging

In 3 Neuromarketing Considerations for Landing Page Optimization, I covered neuromarketing and how the reptilian brain prefers fewer options. A great way to reduce the number of options and highlight a single or only a few options is to use product badging. Below is an example from unbounce.com and they highlight the Pro plan with a “best value”:

Here are some other badging options:

• Top Rated
• Best Seller
• New Arrival
• Top Pick, Top Seller or Hot Seller
• New
• Great Gift
• Etc.

#3 Remove Page Elements

Try removing page elements. While it is important to test various elements on a PPC landing page, testers must also make a concerted effort to remove elements that distract visitors. In general, cleaner pages tend to convert better than cluttered ones. Here are some suggestions for minimizing the clutter:

1. Remove elements that don’t add value to the #1 conversion goal of your page. For example, remove newsletter sign up options, links to other content, navigation on a page, etc.
2. Chop down ad copy and try incorporating bullet points on your page. Less content is easier to read, and copy pops against the white of a page. Take a look at this example from buyfolio:

#4 Test Your Copy

Vary your writing style, using tone and word choice to see what resonates with your audience. When testing copy, I’ll generally use the same overall paragraph components, but change a few sentences and talk about how the product might make different users/visitors feel. Remember, customers buy emotionally and defend their purchases rationally. Make it a goal to get visitors excited about your product or service and see what that does for conversion rates. There are plenty of clues in review information, or you can directly investigate what jazzes your clients (past or current).

#5 Take It Slow

Think about it: it’s not always the best strategy to go for the sale. It might make sense to break down your sales process into a couple of steps — perhaps get a little information at the beginning (like name and phone number or email address) then continue the conversation and building the relationship via phone or email. Taking time to build rapport can really help boost conversion rates and is particularly valuable in a B2B or high-ticket sales situation where sales cycles are longer. In the context of dating, asking for the sale too fast is tantamount to asking someone to marry you after one date. Oy vey.

#6 Test Your Messaging

Evaluate your site by asking someone (preferably someone who doesn’t know anything about your company) the following questions:

• What specific services does your company offer?
• Why should they do business with you?

Go back and rework your landing page copy if users cannot figure out what your company is about in less than 4 seconds (the amount of time before people tend to bail on a page). Revised copy doesn’t need to be long copy, and bullet points are a great option to communicate marketing messages (as per #3).

#7 Use Banners

A great way to incorporate messaging into a page is to use banners and/or ribbons — not hard to do. Figure out why people should buy from you (you should have at least one USP) and put it on your page. Don’t be afraid to repeat it. Look at the example below from musicnotes.com — they have 250K sheet music arrangements (this is their USP), all of which are available instantly. Notice they repeat this over and over in different ways.

Don’t assume people know what you’re all about. Even Zappos, which is very well known for free shipping and returns, repeats this value proposition a couple times on their page. Take a look:

The above represent a few of the many tactics you can use for improving PPC landing page optimization. What strategies do you use? Sound off in the comments!

Many people, including Danny Sullivan, have noted that Google has now embraced a paid inclusion model. Things have certainly changed, and advertisers need to stay on top of their game to take advantage of new opportunities. In this article, I’ll share some tips we’ve learned related to Google Shopping ads.

Before getting started, a few notes on Google Shopping:

• It’s a feed-based product, and feeds are submitted via Google’s Merchant Center. After linking a feed to a Google AdWords account, the best strategy is to set up a separate campaign for all Google Shopping ads.

• Google Shopping has both CPC and CPA bidding. The biggest difference is that CPA doesn’t include the ability to label (more on this later) and doesn’t pay per click but only pays when a purchase is made. Bids are also set as a percentage of the price of a product (for example 20% of $100 = $20). We prefer CPC bidding because of its flexibility, and we tend to get pretty good ROI using it.

• In some more optimized accounts, Google shopping accounts for 25-30% of overall traffic. Over time, this may increase as ad units may increase in size and take up more screen real estate. Lately, Google has been testing a number of different sizes and shapes. Here’s an example of a common layout:

Optimizing Google Shopping Ads

There are different ways to optimize your Google Shopping advertising. There’s the optimization work related to the feed itself (like the content of the feed and specific attributes associated with the feed) and optimization work within the Google AdWords platform. My recommendations below will cover both.

Long Headlines & Descriptions In The Feed

As you know, there are no keywords associated with Google shopping ads, and Google pulls information from the feed to match relevant products to queries. You can increase the chances ads will show for specific queries with longer product titles and descriptions as Google has more content to pull from.

Think of it as SEO for your product feeds. On shopping.google.com, more information displays in the search results but titles and descriptions can get truncated; so, include your best content at the beginning of attributes. Titles can get truncated after 30-40 characters, but descriptions attributes are not limited as much and can be longer.

Take a look at the example for the George Foreman grill below:

Include Handy Attributes In The Feed

In the feed, basic fields like title, description, ID, product_type, image_link, etc. are required attributes. Below are some other handy attributes we also like to include in feeds. Note: these tend to be used by more sophisticated advertisers.

AdWords Grouping (adwords_grouping)

This is used to group products in any way you want. In the example below, adword_grouping has been used to create groups related to pillows, pillowcases, sheets, comforters, etc., but can be used to segment out high volume products, etc. This is a very good option for companies with relatively simple product sets.

AdWords Labels (adwords_labels)

This is similar to adwords_grouping, but works only with CPC bidding. The major benefit with adwords_labels is that it can hold multiple values and allows products to be tagged with multiple labels.

Use Auto Targets In AdWords Interface

Advertisers can bid on core attributes (above) using the auto targets tab. This allows advertising to bid differently based on product types, product groupings, etc. For example, an advertiser may want to bid differently for products grouped as “top sellers” than for a specific group created around other keyword terms.

It’s worth noting that a generic “all products” target is created by default in accounts that have Merchant Center feeds associated with it. “All products” casts a pretty wide net, so bid lower if you use this option. Another important point is that product targets have to match exactly or they will not show.

Take A Look At Your Keyword Terms

Despite many myths, advertisers can see keywords terms that trigger your Google Shopping ads in the Search Query Report at the campaign level. It’s wise to look at these terms to ensure the campaign is as relevant as possible and to pinpoint terms that are not a good fit. The best way to exclude terms is to have extensive negative keyword lists in your campaign (campaign or ad group level).

Here’s how to view keyword terms:

PLA campaign -> Keyword Tab -> Keyword details -> Search Terms -> select “All” to see all terms

You won’t see this option if you go into an ad group and then to the keywords tab. This is likely why so many people think it’s impossible to see keyword terms related to Google Shopping ads.

Try The “Promotion” Option In Google Shopping Ads

Advertisers are able to include a “promotion” with Google Shopping ads units. These are added in the “create an ad” part of the interface. Shipping and discount offers tend to work well in the promotion section and can really make ads pop when the format is displayed by Google. Differentiate your advertising from your competitors, especially if you’re in a competitive space.

Here’s where the promotion option is located in the interface:

Here’s an example of a Google Shopping promotional message:

Feel free to share your Google Shopping tips in the comment section below.

Author’s Note: A special thanks goes out to Stephen Woldenberg & Brian Bensch for their valuable help with this article.

Neuromarketing is a relatively new field of marketing research that studies consumers’ cognitive and emotional responses to marketing stimuli. It seeks to learn why consumers make the decisions they do and what part of the brain our decisions stem from.

In this article, I’ll cover several brain “shortcuts” and discuss ways to successfully implement them on PPC landing pages. As an extra bonus, many of the pointers can also be used on primary website pages, too.

Why Are Brain Shortcuts Important?

The answer stems from our reptilian brains – the part of the brain responsible for survival and that’s the most powerful and oldest of our coping brain functions. It is responsible for the following actions:

• Instinctive survival
• Fight or flight responses
• Anger
• Aggression
• Fear
• Revenge
• Territorial behavior
• Reproductive instinct

With this in mind, it’s important to not to trigger survival responses from our reptilian brain. For example, when threatened or wounded, the reptilian brain will automatically think “fight or flight.. For our online marketing to be effective, it needs to be “non-threatening” and keep the reptilian brain at bay.

Here are several ways to create “shortcuts” and keep the reptilian brain in check. Under each suggestion, I’ve included PPC landing page comments.

1.  Provide Clear & Simple Choices

The brain remembers clear and simple choices well. It particularly remembers items well in chunks of 3-4 segments. Too often, we have all seen examples like the promotional apparel page below. The page has way too many options and visitors not given any clear direction on what or where to focus on the page.

On the other hand, the page below from the Basecamp.com website is very clear and also incorporates the idea that the brain remembers items well in chunks of 3-4.

Another effective way to provide clear and simple choices is where you highlight the “most popular” or “best value” product for your buyer. This helps simply the decision making process for your buyers. Here’s an example from Godaddy.com.

If using a category pages, fewer items per page works best. The 3 x 2 column/row combination works well. If your current pages are long, try pulling product lines into distinct choices and have limited number of choices in each category.

For example, you could break out a generic light bulb page to individual pages that represent brands like Phillips, GE and/or types of bulbs high efficiency, soft light bulbs, etc.

2.  Anchor To Higher Priced Items

We connect/relate to what we first see. In the book called Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, when test subjects were asked to think about their social insurance number and then guess the price of a product, people with higher social insurance numbers guessed that products were more expensive than people with lower social insurance numbers.

So, place items you want people to select or engage with at the top of your pages. Expensive items that appear at the top of a list get selected more often. And you have seen this type of anchoring in many places. Here are some examples:

• Wine list have more expensive options listed first
• When you buy a car, the price of the car is negotiated and then encouraged to add additional options
• When buying an expensive suit, the salesman sells you the suit then goes on to sell you “inexpensive” shoes, shirts, ties, etc. after you have been “anchored” to the price of the suit.

The biggest tip for landing pages for landing page optimization is to show prices on your pages in decreasing order. Here’s an example from the Zappos.com site.

3.  Customers Want To Belong So Help Them Relate

We all relate to a cultural “tribe” and we want to feel at home. Use this idea to help people feel at home on your site and with your advertising. Buyers are looking at identifying and identifying with others so help people identify.

Here are some examples of how people relate:

• By type of car we drive – Honda guy vs. BMW guy vs. hybrid car guy
• By type of exercise we do – crossfit, skiing, etc.
• People can also relate in many other ways. By body type, disease, etc.

Here are some considerations of PPC landing pages:

a) Write specifically to your target audience

For example, B2B pages should have a buttoned up tone. Or, if your product lends itself to it, use a more carefree tone. Groupon has a reputation for the strange way they write on their site.

b) Speak to specific people within your audience

In one of our PPC accounts, we sold light therapy devices. We designed specific pages for “aliments” like depression, seasonal affective disorder (SAD), jet lag, etc. The depression & SAD terms outperformed “light therapy device” terms.

If you’re familiar with PPC, you’ll know that this is highly unusual. An affiliation to a particular group could have been a contributing factor to these pages outperforming more generic terms like “light therapy device”.

Below, I provide seven examples of how to tighten that connection. In today’s fickle world, average online experiences just aren’t good enough.

Before getting started, pages should be in peak form. In general, you want pages to be clear and easily absorb-able so testing and changes are not done in vain. Consider the following about your pages:

Employ basic testing

Do some user testing to ensure pages are intuitive and visitors can navigate them easily. You’re specifically looking for areas where people get confused about the next action they’re expected to take on a page.

Testing here does not need to be elaborate. Ask your mom, your best friend, hairdresser, etc., to surf the page and note where they get hung up, have questions or don’t move to the action you want them to take easily. Make appropriate changes to ensure smoother flowing pages.

Look at current click patterns

Look at your analytics for additional insight on page stumbling blocks. Tools like Clicktail and Google Analytics can provide such information.

For example, in Google Analytics, the in-page analytics report provides information on how visitors click on a page. Using this report, you can move compelling information to more prominent places on the page and/or move the information you want to highlight elsewhere on the page in an attempt to make it more compelling and/or engaging.

Tweak page layout and copy

Reduce the number of words on a page. People scan pages and, more often than not, there’s too much information on pages for people to easily absorb. I really like bullet points on pages. My preferred cocktail is 5 to 7 words in each bullet point and 3 to 5 bullet points on the page.

It’s important to consider holistically the whole package of how the user consumes information and moves onto the next stage of the purchase process. It can be a fun game to try to incorporate more than one element and hit on the optimal combination of style and compelling substance. Don’t just make your pages “pop,” make them work!

Tip #1: Reiterate Your Main Drivers

There’s nothing worse than clicking on a specific offer (20% off for Cyber Monday, for example), and seeing only the generic website with no mention of the special offer that drew you there. Pages should reiterate the original reason people were drawn to your page. Pages should also reiterate the keyword that drove people to your page.

For example, if a PPC ad drove visitors to the page, specific keyword term(s) from the ad should appear in the headline to provide good keyword scent (from ad to landing page) and boost conversions. In general, continuity is #1 in terms of lift.

Tip #2: Make A Quantifiable Claim To Downplay Risk

Someone is considering joining your “club” and spending money with you. It can help to know that others have had measurable results from doing just the same. Combining quantifiable results with the bandwagon effect can be just the reassurance that skittish prospects need.

For example:

50% of all people find jobs

2/3 of our members find everlasting love

Tip #3: Incorporate Benefits Clearly & Proudly

Benefits speak specifically to a consumer’s need and can remind the visitor of why they were interested enough to follow your ad in the first place.

Compare how Sears and Dyson Canada present information about Dyson vacuum cleaners. The Sears site downplays the product description, while the (prouder) Dyson site makes it easier to see rich product descriptions that make it crystal-clear why the vacuums are considered an elite product.

Above the add to basket button, the Dyson site states unequivocally that there’s free shipping, while the Sears site places limitations on free shipping (located in “details”) to “products under 65 lbs.” and forces users to do the math. And, for heaven’s sake, don’t mouse over “All Departments” by accident on the Sears Canada site, or the resulting navigation bar that pops up will cover up the Dyson product description you’re currently viewing!

By contrast, the Dyson site is totally in control. The user can see the product do a sophisticated little 3-D dance, in keeping with its engineering focus, high-tech image, and the company’s TV ads. Sears just looks like… Sears. It’s clear Dyson is more motivated to sell Dyson vacuums than Sears is.

Tip #4: Long Or Short Headline? Find The Best Headline

Is the length of the headline really the issue?

Below are some variations from tests we ran (I changed company name to protect the innocent). Read each over and guess which performed best. Answers are below. No cheating!

• Headline #1: Rita’s Hanging Basket Wholesale Offers 30-60% Off Always and Free Shipping On Any Order Over $50
• Headline #2: 30-60% Off A Wide Selection of Hanging Baskets
• Headline #3: Trusted Online Hanging Basket Wholesaler Since 1998

Which one do you think converted best?

If you guessed that #1 converted best, you’re absolutely right. The brief headlines were trumped by important, salient information added in the most visible place on the page. It’s important not to bury compelling information on pages.

The best place for compelling information on a page is the top left hand side of the page where people start reading and where the headline is located. Don’t be afraid of headline “length” if it works, and if it helps you to reduce clutter elsewhere.

Not unrelated to this is the amount of white space that appears around the headline. In our testing, more white space worked best. The headline is less crowded by other images and words and it makes the headline pop.

Tip #5: Highlight Leads, Not Sales, For Long Cycle Items

You’re not going to get anyone to buy a fleet of jets on their company credit card right now. It’s an extreme example, but too many high-ticket products are sold using “all or none” style pages online – this only creates quick bounces.

Depending on what you’re selling, consider breaking up the sales process. Instead of asking for an online sale, provide rich information on the site, and also make it clear that for even richer information, you’ll need to provide email address. Continue the sale via email, a phone call, etc. This is particularly effective if the sale is complex or if people have a lot of questions during the buying process.

The point is, you want some kind of conversion rather than none at all. Asking them to buy on the spot often results in a considerably lower conversion rate.

Tip #6: Incorporate Urgency

Incorporate a sense of urgency into your headline to encourage people to buy now rather than later. At this time of year, Christmas specials work well. Here are some examples:

Holiday offer ends Dec. 10

Gummi bear stock is limited: order now while they last!

Tip #7: Appropriate Tone In Copy

Depending on what you’re selling, try a different tone (particularly effective in headlines) like informal, playful, etc. But be sure that the tone matches up with your vertical and target audience in general. For example, try a playful tone to sell toys to children or the parents of children. On the other hand, using a playful tone to sell an enterprise B2B solution would not be a good idea.

What are some of the tactics you’ve used to lower bounce rates on your search ad landing pages?

In my opinion, the campaign setting changes are some of the lowest hanging fruit in AdWords accounts and can provide tremendous lift in PPC accounts. Quick and easy changes here can mean big bang for your PPC bucks.

By paying attention to this tab, and making the appropriate changes, advertisers can see the following benefits:

1. Increased account ROI
2. Increased control in specific areas in PPC accounts
3. The ability to finely tune PPC accounts

It’s worth noting the campaign settings tab is often overlooked in PPC optimization efforts. I’ve been involved with PPC accounts for many years and have yet to see an account that could not use some optimization in the campaign settings tab.

In AdWords accounts, there are several changes I like to make to in the campaign settings tab. Below, I’ll cover five examples and changes you can implement to make your PPC work better for you.

1.  Standard Option Default

This first one is very new. In a Google PPC account, there’s a standard account option and the all features option. The standard option is bare bones and does not display all campaign settings options.

You’ll want to choose the all features option (selected above in the red box) so that options like keyword matching, ad rotation, ad scheduling, location options, delivery option, etc. actually appear in your campaign settings tab, and you can make changes I’ll be recommending in this article.

2.  Keyword Matching Options Default

Another default option is called keyword matching options. The default in Google for phrase match and exact match is to include plurals, misspellings and other close variants. We opt out of this as we expect misspellings, plurals, etc. to factored in with our specific broad match strategies that involve precise bidding, negative match terms, etc.

My recommendation here is to choose do not include close variants”(as per red box above) and to use specific keyword terms and keyword match types in your PPC accounts. It’s definitely means more work, but it’s work that’s well worth it. The default setting negates all broad match work in accounts, and I’ve seen it contribute to worse ROI in PPC accounts. Use this setting with caution.

3.  Ad Rotation Default

The default option in Google AdWords is optimize for clicks. This means the ad that is getting clicked on the most is the ad that’s getting served the most in Google. But, as we all know, it’s also important to consider ROI, ROAS and other metrics related to how much money your ads are making.

So, choose the rotate indefinitely option (as per red box above), and traffic will rotate between all ads in your campaign. For this feature to work best (and if your traffic figures allow for it), include a few different ad variations from which you can choose a winning ad.

In one of our accounts, here are the changes from only having changed the feature from optimize for clicks to rotate indefinitely:

Conversion Rate

Pre rotate change = 7.90%

Post rotate change = 10.83%

Difference = 37.1% increase in conversion rate

Cost Per Conversion

Pre rotate change = $24.48

Post rotate change = $18.34

Difference = 25.1% decrease in cost per conversion

Total Conversions

Pre rotate change = 566

Post rotate change = 834

Difference = 47.3% increase in total conversions

4.  Mobile Advertising Default

By default, advertisers are opted into mobile ads. You’ll definitely want to opt out if your product/service doesn’t lend itself to mobile, like if you have a longer consideration product or you’re selling B2B.

You’ll also want to opt out if you do not have mobile optimized landing pages. So, go to let me choose, then deselect mobile devices with full browsers (see screenshot above).

5.  Geographic Location Default

When selecting a geographic area in Google AdWords, the initial options suggested to advertisers are broad. For example, Google suggested that I advertise to the US and Canada when I was setting up an account in Canada.

If you require narrower options or different ones, go to let me choose (as per red box above) and you can choose specific areas where you want your advertising to appear. Advertising can be as broad as a country (or many countries) or as specific as a particular radius within a city.

Here’s an example of what the interface looks like:

Bonus Default: Broad Match Default Option

When adding keywords to an account, the default setting in AdWords is broad match. It sounds silly, but many times we’ll see an account with way too many broad match terms (and often not enough negative match terms to counter broad distribution). To prevent this, add specific punctuation for more specific match types.

From Google’s help files, here’s how the match types are implemented and some examples of how they trigger.

1.  Take Advantage Of Facebook Targeting Features

There are numerous specialized targeting features in Facebook. Expanding targeting beyond age, gender and other basic demographics provides opportunities to target more specifically and/or widen your advertising reach. On Facebook, some of the ways in which you can target are by precise interests, connections on Facebook, education, workplaces, etc.

Here’s an example of precise interests:

Here’s an example of education and work (in advanced targeting options section):

2.  Improve Metrics & Tracking

Advertisers can be easily tempted to use Facebook to simply increase brand awareness. General goals like driving traffic to a fan page and/or getting people to watch your new video are too vague and are a recipe for wasted ad spend. Instead, make conversions goals specific and measurable.

Here are some examples of specific Facebook goals you could track:

• Sell 500 widgets in a month at a cost of $10 per widget
• Get 10,000 new fans on a company page. Market an inexpensive product on the page & get 4% of all new fans to make a purchase.
• Get 10,000 video views & get 2% of all viewers to the site to purchase a product
• Get 2,000,000 ad impressions at an average cost of 0.50 and get 4% to download a whitepaper

As you run campaigns, modify and fine-tune goals as needed. For example, the second goal listed above could end up like this:

• Get 10K new fans on a company fan page. Market an inexpensive product on the page and get 4% of all new fans to make a purchase
• Once customers, retarget them via a drip marketing campaign, which has an average conversion rate of 15%

Good goals tie into overall marketing objectives. And all your marketing initiatives (online and offline) should eventually work together like a well-oiled machine.

3.  Grab Facebook Users’ Attention

Facebook users don’t come to the site to peruse ads. They stop by to see what their friends are doing, look at pictures and send messages to other site users – which means that any paid ad you post must be interesting enough for these tuned-out participants to abandon usual routines and pay attention to paid advertisements. Here are some suggestions:

Use bold colors in images or logos in ads. These catch the eye and grab people’s attention. Take a look at this example from MGD:

Add a colored border to your ad images. This is also a great way to make your ads more eye-catching compared to other advertiser’s messages.

Use female faces. These images tend to convert best when used on Facebook ads, and the number of stock images available today means that female faces can be adapted to nearly any advertising scenario. Happy female faces tend to convert best.

Tie your ads to a specific promotion. Clearly define the benefits of clicking on your advertisement with a limited-time offer or specific promotion. Asking users to “take action now” goes a long way toward breaking them out of their routine Facebook usage cycles.

4.  Use Text In Your Images

Words in images have been working well, so include words around your images. Some examples are a compelling offer like “50% off” or a call to action like “call us today.” Aim for a font that is big and bold so someone can see the text if they’re sitting in front of a computer or walking by a computer. Aim to place fewer words over an image. I personally like no more than 4 words.

5.  Change Ads Up Often

Compared to AdWords, ads will run their course fairly quickly in Facebook. So, be sure to change ads up often. You don’t have to make dramatic changes to ads for them to be different. Try simple changes like the suggestions below so your ads stay fresh:

• Different border color (thin black, thick red, etc.)
• Different colors in your image/company logo
• Different images (like picture of well known person at company, a happy woman, etc.)
• Different angles of images (like someone looking directly at the camera)
• Different text on top of an image so that your ads stay fresh

Finally, Facebook users have already trained themselves to block out advertising messages and become burned out on repetitive messages more quickly than the users you reach through other advertising programs.

So what does this means for PPC advertisers, who communicate exclusively in short text-based messages? Simply put, the words we use in our advertisements must be as powerful as possible.

If your messages lack appeal, you may find it difficult to get your ad to stand out amongst your competitors to drive high CTR’s while maintaining good conversion rates.

If you feel like your ad text could use a boost, try testing the points below in your PPC ad copy.

1.  Eliminate Unnecessary Words

We see unnecessary words far too much in PPC advertising. The total number of characters we have to work with is limited. So why waste these valuable resources telling readers things they don’t need to know?!

In PPC ads, this could entail any of the following:

a) The location of your company. PPC advertisers can use ad extensions and proper integration with Google Places for this. Fully taking advantage of all Google ad features can help you take up more screen real estate and help your ads stand out more.

b) Clichés. Depending on the ad and/or product, using words like “quality” or “service” might just clutter up the body copy without adding anything compelling that the user doesn’t already expect you to boast about. Given the limited space, letting the user focus on one powerful message (like a deal on overnight shipping) is often more effective than diluting things with additional promises that nearly any business might be expected to make.

c) Your brand. Especially if your brand doesn’t have significant recognition within your industry. It’s better to focus on USPs and value propositions like 24/7 support, fast shipping, large selection, etc. You can also focus on compelling benefits (discussed in #2 below) if your brand is not recognized.

d) Your phone number. Again, PPC advertisers can use ad extensions to include phone numbers in ads if they want to drive phone calls.

For more information, refer to my 3 Common Ad Copy Flops article for more info on what not to do with PPC ad copy text.

2.  Home In On Compelling Benefits

If the benefit you’ve decided to focus on in your PPC ad doesn’t appeal to visitors, no phrasing you can conjure up will make your words as powerful as they could be if you had chosen a more appealing benefit.

For this reason, it’s critical that benefits you’re promoting in PPC ads are the ones that resonate best with your audience.

Whether you determine this via in person or online focus groups, randomly polling audience members on your site, split testing various benefit-oriented ad texts or any other technique, taking the time to identify the right elements to promote will go a long way towards making your ads effectively speak to your target audience and as a result convert better.

3.  Incorporate Power Words

Incorporate different power words into your PPC ads. Mileage will vary depending on the industry and the words you use.

For example, some words will provide tremendous incentive in some verticals while in others completely turn people off at the prospect of low value/useless offers. Ad copy testing will determine which options are most compelling to your audience.

To use power words effectively, start by brainstorming a few different options that can be substituted in your PPC ads. Then, split test your ad variations to conclusively determine which power words represent the biggest impact on your PPC conversion rates.

Some examples of words I like to try in PPC testing are try, get, fast, online, etc. Here are some examples (altered to protect client confidentiality) of headlines with and without power words, along with their associated cost per conversion. This is based on a large sample size.

Get Eagle Talons – $7.75

Eagle Talons Fast – $10.24

Eagle Talons – OEM – $7.81

Parts of Birds Online – $12.10

What did we learn? Either “Get” or “OEM” were strong performers as opposed to mentioning speed. While fast shipping may be a benefit, we assume it looks cheesy in a headline or causes a few more hasty clicks than it should.

It’s pretty clear that the broader term (“parts of birds”) attracts more curious clicks from people who are ultimately less likely to find what they need on the client’s site.

The tighter term sets us on the right path for what Bryan Eisenberg has called “persuasive momentum”. It also matches more closely to the keyword terms, which will probably result in a higher CTR and better Quality Score overall, and probably there better ROI (all else being equal).

4.  Avoid Generic Copy

Before launching any new PPC campaign, take a look at the specific messages your competitors are running. Do you see any patterns? Any instances of words or phrasing that are repeated across advertisements?

Whenever you see these opportunities, you’re being handed a golden opportunity to incorporate power words into your advertisements in order to differentiate yourself from your competitors.

Think of it like a “combo breaker” in a video game. If you can set yourself and your ad apart by breaking standard patterns and avoiding generic copy, you’ll stand a far greater chance of getting your ad clicked on.

5.  Perfect Your Call To Action

Very few things in the advertising world are more powerful than asking your reader to take a specified action.

From a human psychology standpoint, even posing a simple request in a scenario in which the reader has no stake in completing your desired action brings him or her into an unstated social contract. Breaking this contract causes mental unease, which is why many people will subconsciously carry out your calls to action – even if they see no benefit to themselves for doing so.

A special case may be free trial or sample offers, which require no actual purchase (yet). If it’s free anyway, avoid making the process sound difficult! Consider that the phrase, “Claim your copy now” seems much less arduous to visitors than the alternative, “Buy your copy now.”

Landing Page Example #1 – Unclear Call To Action

This is a very good example of a page with no clear focus. Because there are too many words on this page, it does not have a main focal point or direct you to take a particular action. Left to guess, you’d probably select a category and topic at the top of the page, press go and see what information it brought back.

Customer actions should not be left to chance and pages should be designed with specific objectives in mind. Here’s a better page:

The above page is clear and specifically tells users what they need to do and how many steps it will take for them to get the information they seek.

One of my most favorite tests is not to add new elements to pages but to remove elements. If there’s no difference in overall conversion rate, the information has no business at all being on the page. You’ll notice the latter page is much less cluttered than the former one.

Landing Page Example #2 – Too Many Form Fields

This is an issue many companies suffer from. In the form below, Criteo has 12 required elements including phone no, email and requires the prospect to answer very personal questions.

Additionally, this is one of many lead forms the company has (they have others for advertisers, publishers, journalists, shoppers, etc.). It makes the company look like a machine, seem impersonal and like they want to close a sale fast.

A better way is to think in phases, starting with getting basic contact info, then askis for additional information by follow up email or via a direct phone call to the prospect.

Take a look at the Cityproof example below:

For more information on form optimization, check out my article called 10 Form Optimization Tips for Landing Pages.

Landing Page Example #3 – Images On Page

The best images are images of your actual products or services. In the example below, the image of a man losing his temper over a timeshare purchase or share issue will not convert as well as images of products or services themselves.

In this case, compelling images of the timeshare would have been a better image option.

In fact, the size of the Google Adwords program creates a number of challenges for “small-time” webmasters. The service’s immense popularity has resulted in extreme competition, driving up keyword bid prices and lowering ad placements for sites running on smaller budgets.

If you’ve been struggling to gain traction on this highly competitive network, take a look at the following PPC alternatives for generating paid traffic.

Alternative #1 – Facebook Paid Ads

Advertising on Facebook’s Paid Ads platform (whose “Sponsored Stories” typically appear in user profile sidebars) can be a mixed bag.

On the one hand, Facebook’s Paid Ads program provides much better targeting features than Google Adwords, enabling merchants to target users according to a number of different criteria, including age, gender, hobbies, geographic areas and more.

However, user engagement on the site is notoriously low. While some marketers speculate that the limited number of characters granted to advertisers account for these limitations, a much more likely explanation for the universally low clickthrough rates seen on the site is ad burnout.

Because Facebook users have been trained to gloss over advertisement sections on the site, your message must be truly captivating in order to draw clicks. Take a look at my article 3 Steps To Combat Image Fatigue In Facebook for more information on this.

If you do decide to pursue advertising opportunities on this site, remember that it’s nearly all about the image you position alongside your ad text. To stand out from the blur of other features on the site, select the most eye-catching graphic possible – even if it isn’t entirely related to your ad text.

For more information on this, take a look at my article called 3 Types of Image Ads That Work. In addition, choose your targeting options carefully to ensure that your promotions are seen only by the audience members to whom they’re most relevant.

Alternative #2 – LinkedIn DirectAds

Overall, LinkedIn’s DirectAds platform functions more like Facebook’s Paid Ads than Google’s Adwords, in that this PPC alternative also allows you to target the specific users who will see your advertisements within the LinkedIn website, based on their stated criteria.

Unfortunately, LinkedIn’s advertising program isn’t for the faint of heart – or the small of budget. Clicks through DirectAds promotions cost a minimum of $2/click, and although advertisers can set minimum daily budgets of $10/day, language contained in the site’s Terms of Service allows LinkedIn to exceed set limits by as much as 20%, depending on ad performance. Left unchecked, these overages could easily total thousands of dollars a month.

Given these financial ramifications, use caution when enrolling in the LinkedIn DirectAds program. Take the time to analyze LinkedIn’s core demographics to determine whether the site’s users are a good match for your ads.

In addition, because the DirectAds program provides very little information on how or when your promotions are displayed, you may also find it necessary to invest in a third-party bid measurement program to maintain a positive ROI in relation to the site’s high bid prices.

Alternative #3 – Kontera

In general, Kontera is best known for its in-text advertisements, which appear as linked content within Internet articles, blog posts and more. But besides these contextual link ads, the company also offers social media promotion services, editorial advertisements and mobile solutions, though few objective reviews are available on the efficacy of these newer service offerings.

When considering this PPC alternative, be aware that many users seriously dislike the way in-text Kontera ads display on their favorite websites. In fact, a Google search for the company’s brand name turns up as many results asking, “How do I get rid of Kontera ads?” as it does news articles praising the company’s traffic-generation services.

In addition, reviews of Kontera’s in-text ad service by industry figures aren’t that promising when it comes to ad relevancy. Consider the following ad placement that prominent Internet marketing blogger Chris Guthrie received while testing Kontera on one of his sites:

As an advertiser, it’s imperative that you know your promotions are being displayed to the best possible candidates. But for now, my verdict is to stay away from Kontera. Despite the site’s wide reach and generally low click charges, the quality of its placements simply isn’t high enough to justify its savings over other PPC alternatives.

Alternative #4 – StumbleUpon Paid Discovery

One final alternative PPC program that deserves mention is StumbleUpon’s Paid Discovery program, which is unique from the other options discussed here in that it does not require users to click on an advertisement in order to participate.

To understand Paid Discovery, we must first understand how StumbleUpon’s traditional service works. Essentially, users who are interested in discovering new Web content install the StumbleUpon browser toolbar, which randomly serves up pages designed to match their stated interests and past preferences. Paid Discovery allows advertisers to “cut in line,” introducing their content into the StumbleUpon stream ahead of other recommended pages.

But is it worth it? In many cases, no. StumbleUpon traffic performance is often quite poor when it comes to conversions; because users are simply being served pages instead of actively clicking chosen ads, their motivation to engage further with an advertiser’s site is often limited.

On the other hand, the service does have some interesting potential when it comes to link building, brand awareness expansion and social media marketing.

If you have established metrics in these areas through which you can measure the impact of StumbleUpon’s Paid Discovery service on your website’s success, the program could be worth a try.

Of course, these are only a few of the different PPC alternative sites available today. If you’ve had particular success with another option, share your results in the comment section below.

Here, I’ll focus on several effective landing pages elements and provide examples.

1.  Credibility Indicators

On landing pages, try including credibility indicators such as testimonials, reviews, awards, social media information (i.e. Facebook likes, number of tweets, etc.) and seller ratings.

Here are some specific ideas related to credibility indicators:

• Use specific testimonials for specific products/services – these tend to convert best.
• Use testimonials to reiterate your company’s core value propositions.
• Couple a longer, extremely compelling testimonial at the top of a page with a couple of shorter ones (see nuts.com example below). Whether the top one is from CNN or NYT, or a particularly eloquent customer, depends of course on your business, track record, etc.

2.  Add Elements To Your Existing Buttons

To improve conversions, add some extra pop to your existing buttons.

For example, instead of a simple “buy now” button, try dual buttons with options like “quick view” or “order now”.

If your online strategy is linked up to Facebook, try testing combinations of conversion buttons and “sign in with Facebook” buttons. Take a look at the following example:

3.  Remove Page Elements

We usually try to add elements to pages. Instead, try removing elements that can decrease the chance of a conversion (you should always focus on your primary conversion event first).

Here are several examples of items you can remove:

• Secondary and tertiary conversion events like newsletter sign-ups
• Extra links on a page
• The navigation bar
• Reduce the number of words on a page (using bullet points can help with this)

In general, cleaner pages with less clutter tend to convert better than overly designed ones with a lot of images and text.

4.  Calls To Action

I know, I know. This one is cliché and is often touted by many. But it’s not always the best strategy from a conversion standpoint to go right for the sale.

Is it possible to breakdown your sales process by collecting a little information at the original point of contact and ask for additional information in subsequent interactions?

Here are some examples of this:

• Add to cart, then ask for personal user info.
• Follow up with a phone call and ask for more information via form.
• If requesting contact info (a lead), ask for the minimum amount of variables possible on the original lead form page and request more variables on the thank you page. Offer an incentive on the thank you page for people to give you additional details.

5.  Try Different Wording

Different words evoke different kinds of emotions. Try different wording to try to improve conversion rates.

In both of the examples below, the companies use words other than “order now” to “ask for the sale”.

37 signals uses “see plans and pricing”

Crazyegg.com uses “show me my heat map” (as opposed to order now):

What are some effective landing page tactics you’ve employed for better conversions?