We conducted a test between two advertisements for one of our clients. Unfortunately, we don’t have permission to show screen shots due to the competitiveness of the industry - yeah, we know, we seriously begged them to let us but they wouldn’t budge. They gave us permission to share our thoughts and results so here we are…

One advertisement was fairly standard with a strong headline and a strong call to action. This ad wasn’t too unique and our bids gave us a good average position in the 3rd place. Click through rate (CTR) was only 4%. Not bad for the industry but not good enough for us.

We approached this client with some ad copy that was not normal for us to use and definitely not normal for the industry. It was humorous (yes, we CAN be funny if we don’t try too hard). This client approved the ad so we threw it into the ad group rotation and waited one day.

The results came back and we were surprised - CTR went up to 7% for BOTH ads and our quality score went from Good to Great! Awesome…so, let’s lower our bid 17% and see if we can get the same results…and another day went by.

We analyzed our results again and found the average position stayed the same (we were still in 3rd place) and our CTR was similar at 6.87%. The best part was that we lowered our costs by 17%! Yes, the taste of sweet success…mmmmmm.

For this experiment, this is what we learned:

One great ad with a little humor could lift the standard ad’s CTR…

An ad that solicits a high CTR can improve your Quality Score…

An improved Quality Score gives you the opportunity to lower your costs.

This is all a very narrow assumption to make with this small experiment, but it could be worth a shot to use some humor in your advertisements.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed or get email updates whenever we post anything new!

• Hand Writing Notes Like They’re Text Advertisements
  I started reviewing some of my hand written notes over the past few days to make sure I haven't missed anything super important and I...
• Pay Per Click Advertising Tip #2 - Google AdWords Standard vs. Accelerated
  After you set up and organize your campaign, you will want to visit the campaign settings section for any/all campaigns and test the delivery method...
• Automating PPC Bid Management
  Warning: This is an informative, somewhat educational rant that is mostly against the ppc bid management software commonly used today. :) Automating bid management...
• AdWords Quality Score Changes To Go Live Worldwide
  As we recently reported, Google AdWords has announced three big changes in its pay per click advertising program concerning quality score and bidding. The AdWords Team...

More articles in General PPC»