Smart e-Commerce: e-Marketing Information

Google penalizes Adwords ads with poor click through rates.  If your ad is not generating clicks, it's making it more expensive for you to advertise.  Discover how to improve the click through rate of your ads.

Your Adwords ad is sales copy. You are attempting to persuade a potential consumer to make a decision based on your ad text. This is the art a science of sales copy. Sales copy can be defined as salesmanship in print.

The trick in Adwords is that you only have 95 characters to do it in (25 character headline + 2 lines of 35 character description). That is daunting task for any professional salesman.

The following tips can improve the sales copy in both your Adwords ads and in your landing page or sales letter.

Speak to the customer: A general rule of sales copy is that you want to appeal directly to the consumer. By using the word you, you address the consumer in a direct personal way, as if you were speaking to them. Use you in your sales copy instead of your product name or I.

Solutions: People buy solutions, not products or services Another general rule of sales copy is that a customer is looking to find a solution, not buy a product. A customer doesn't want to buy a drill, instead they need a way to make a hole. You need to sell a solution. A perfect example of this are Billy Mays TV commercials for Hercules hooks, Oxyclean, OrangeClean or any of his products. Did you ever notice the commercial starts by describing or creating a problem? The commercial then proceeds to persuade you that they have the solution to the problem. The commercials are like that because the method works.

Feature versus Benefit: You may be tempted to list a prominent feature of your product. Don't. Instead, make a list of every feature you can think of. Then write down the corresponding reason the customer would want that feature. You can often move from feature to benefit by using "what that means to you, Mr. Customer is". That becomes a benefit. Then don't describe a feature in your ad, but describe a benefit.

Use a Call to Action: A Call to Action is a sentence instructing the consumer to perform a task. The consumer will often be subconsciously persuaded to do it. A call to Action generally begins with a verb (the action). Here are some examples.

    * Click here.
    * Download your copy now.
    * Call now.
    * Get help.

Keyword or Phrase: Your ad will be more attractive to the customer if your ad text contains the keyword or phrase they searched on. Right away your customer will view your ad has highly relevant, because the keyword is right there. The headline is a particularly good place to have the keyword since your customer sees it first. This tactic is done automatically if you use the Adwords strategy from adwords-marketing-tool,com

Use Free if applicable: Using the word free is likely to increase your CTR. Make sure your landing page does freely give away what you promised.

Hype words: Hype words like amazing or incredible may help you attract attention. But be careful, overuse them and you sound like a snake oil salesman.  

Sense of urgency: You can create a sense of urgency with a phrase like limited offer. This encourages a customer to make a purchase on the spot. If you have the space available, you can describe the consequences of failing to act.

No risk: Consumers are cautious of being taken advantage of.  A money back guarantee or a no risk free trial helps persuade you consumers.

Test your ads: The only way you'll know if your sales copy is working is to test it. Split testing is the accepted method of testing your ads. You run two ads simultaneously. After the proper amount of time, you compare CTR or ROI and declare a winner and remove the lesser ad.