The Strangest PPC Secret
Posted on 22. Apr, 2012 by Glenn Livingston, Ph.D. in AdWords, Blog, Content Network, Overture (yahoo search marketing), Pay Per Click, Quality Score, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Traffic
OK, so here’s the strangest clickthrough secret I’ve come across in my years…
Something which has the capacity to take your prospect OUT of a competitive environment and position you as the obvious solution to their problem…
And something largely counter-intuitive, so I need you to stay with me please.
Here’s the secret…
When you’re in a high volume traffic stream, advertising to a specific demographic segment of the market can actual increase your volume of sales and overall profits, even–and sometimes especially–when that segment represents a smaller proportion of people searching.
For example, let’s suppose you’re selling a solution to stop excessive barking in dogs. Let’s call it the “Shut Up Machine” OK?
OK. And suppose we’re paying $1 per click for our best performing ad on “stop barking” for this ad:
CTR = 1% Conversion = 1%
Cost Per Conversion = $100
Conversions Per 1,000 Visitors = 10
Now, let’s further suppose–and these are just wild assumptions since I haven’t actually researched this market–that the search volume in this market breaks down as follows:
- Women Under 40 = 35%
- Women over 40 = 30%
- Men Under 40 = 15%
- Men Over 40 = 20%
Common sense might suggest you’d need to keep the generic ad, because there’s no demographic which makes up the overwhelming majority of the market. (So one might think that advertising to women only, for example, would drop our clickthrough by 35%, since women represent 65% of the search volume).
But in many cases I’ve seen this just isn’t true. Especially if you’ve analyzed your BUYERS and found a bias therein.
For example, suppose ShutUpMachine.com’s buyers were 50/50 men and women, despite the fact women outnumber men 2 to 1 in search. What this says is, men are disproportionately responsive.
Now suppose we dig even further (by surveying our buyers) and discover that 80% of our male buyers are over 40. (We’d expect only a slight bias towards the over 40 range given the search volume breakdown above) .
This tells us that men over 40 are especially responsive to our offer. Indeed, 40% of all our customers are men over forty in this scenario (50% of all customers are men x 80% of male customers over forty = 40% of all customers) , even though this demographic represents just 20% of the search volume.
In other words, men over 40 are twice as responsive to the generic offer.
Can you imagine what would happen to the system if you optimized it for them?
Here’s what I’d do in that situation…
I’d aggressively test optimizing a WHOLE PATHWAY for men over 40.
So we might write an ad like this:
And then we’d land them on a page with a story from a man in his 40s who wants nothing but some peace and quiet when he comes home from a hard day, finally finishes taking care of wife and kids, and just wants to relax.
We’d paint a before and after picture with that story…
And because we’d knock our visitor out with the “Holy Crap! This is exactly for me!” experience, we’d probably get an even higher conversion rate on the landing page. Let’s assume 50% higher.
What might the numbers look like?
This is the strangest secret…
Because often when you’ve done this kind of analysis of your buyers to isolate the most responsive demographic, you can create a situation where the CTR doesn’t drop at all.
In other words, you might be targeting a much smaller percentage of the market, but their click responsiveness makes up for their lack of presence in the market as a whole. (And even when that’s not the case, you can often make up for it with increased landing page conversion)
For example, you might see something like this:
A few important things to note:
- Even though the CTR is the same from the PPC engine’s perspective, the truth is you’re getting a 5% clickthrough from your target audience. You just can’t SEE that because you can’t restrict the exposure to the rest of the audience in general PPC advertising. (Sometimes you CAN do this with email buys and banner advertising, but you’ve gotta be very, very careful because advertising vendors will often jack up the price for these kind of “selects” more than the increase in responsiveness warrants. Run your spreadsheets and know your numbers before testing this!)
- Even though the price per click is the same, we get a bump in conversion by taking the prospect OUT of the competitive environment and re-assuring them we are the ONLY vendor positioned to meet their unique needs
- As with so many other things in marketing, going after a “higher percentage of a smaller percentage” is so often the answer
- There’s nothing to stop you from developing ANOTHER site for women over and under 40, etc. in order to look for more volume with additional conversion bumps. However, by rank ordering your customer demographics in terms of responsiveness you’ll be able to estimate the effectiveness of these efforts as compared to the time and money you need to allocate to accomplish them. (In the example above, we found women were modestly less responsive than men as a whole. Still, you should expect SOME increase in conversion due to the demographic segmentation (assuming you’ve studied how the product plays out differently in their lives), so it’s just a matter of math to guestimate which segments are worthwhile to pursue as such, and in what order.
- There’s also nothing that stops you from ALSO running the generic ad if it’s profitable. (You should test running both a generic and a segmented ad vs. running only the segmented ad)
If any of this math was hard to follow, let me restate it in simple English…
- If you survey your customer database, you might find you’ve got more women than men, more young people than older people, etc.
- Compare the percentages you find in your customers to what Quantcast.com and/or Alexa.com says about the demographic breakdown for search volume in your market. (Enter a few of the top search engine ranked websites to find out)
- If you DO find your percentages are different than what you see in Quantcast, etc, that probably means there’s a demographic group that’s MORE responsive to your offer than average…
- Test targeting a teaser ad and landing page to THAT unique demographic and see what happens
Yah?
Got get’m!
Onwards and Upwards My Fine Marketing Friends…
You can clear away SO much confusion if you’ll just take the time to master a few fundamental conversion principles. And now you can watch me do it LIVE on site after site. (Get started as of the time of this post for less than $5)
Dr. Glenn 
Your “Web Sales Hero(tm)”
PPS – Want a simpler way to increase your conversions? Put evangelistic audio testimonials on your site. Listen, testimonials sell, but they’ve got to be done right. You want to support the specific claims you make in your USP with specific results obtained. And you need to get the customer to describe their results in contagious, emotionally compelling language that BRINGS THE TESTIMONIAL TO LIFE. (Do It Yourself | Let Us Do It For You)
PPPS – The above example is hypothetical. Please don’t attempt to advertise with these specific ads.
Make More Money By Turning OFF Your Advertising
Posted on 10. Apr, 2012 by Glenn Livingston, Ph.D. in AdWords, AdWords Cost, Blog, Campaigns, Content Network, conversion, Copywriting, Decision Making, Hyper Responsive Marketing, Information Marketing, Inspiration, MSN, Overture (yahoo search marketing), Pay Per Click, Quality Score, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Traffic
If the escalating expense, difficulty, and time to generate a high volume of profitable internet sales is crippling your growth–or crushing your morale–I’ve got a very important audio for you to hear today…
Because it’s entirely possible that…
“You Can Make More Money by Turning Off Your Time Killing, Morale Crushing, Migraine Inducing, Pain-in-the-Ass Advertising System!”
Listen to this interview with Ryan Levesque, my partner in an extremely weird new marketing experiment which just might be your saving grace
Make More Money By Turning OFF Your Advertising
Posted on 10. Apr, 2012 by Glenn Livingston, Ph.D. in AdWords, AdWords Cost, Blog, Campaigns, Content Network, conversion, Copywriting, Decision Making, Hyper Responsive Marketing, Information Marketing, Inspiration, MSN, Overture (yahoo search marketing), Pay Per Click, Quality Score, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Traffic
If the escalating expense, difficulty, and time to generate a high volume of profitable internet sales is crippling your growth–or crushing your morale–I’ve got a very important audio for you to hear today…
Because it’s entirely possible that…
“You Can Make More Money by Turning Off Your Time Killing, Morale Crushing, Migraine Inducing, Pain-in-the-Ass Advertising System!”
Listen to this interview with Ryan Levesque, my partner in an extremely weird new marketing experiment which just might be your saving grace
How to Sell Anything Using Social Media
Posted on 05. Jan, 2012 by John Jantsch in AdWords, Blog, content strategy, selling, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media
How to Sell Anything Using Social Media
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
One of my predictions for 2012 is that more people will come to understand that you can indeed do business using social networks and, frankly, I’m already seeing it.
There are a couple reasons for this.
First off, people are getting more comfortable with social media and social behavior and the “social media is a pure engagement temple mentality” of some early adopters has faded.
More importantly, however, is that smart marketers are testing, tweaking and trying lots of things and figuring out how to build know, like and trust – the path to selling anything, anywhere – on social networks.
In my own experimenting I can tell you that generating and converting leads using social media takes a more patient approach, but once you find the right path, it’s actually a better way to sell in any environment.
The reason I see many people’s social media marketing efforts fail is that they are still simply broadcasting sales messages. This approach still works to some degree in an advertising setting because people often stumble upon your ads with a buying intent. It still works to some degree in email marketing efforts because people have asked to get your messages and you can easily earn the right to sell in that relationship.
However, most people don’t participate in social networks to shop so any sales message can feel sort of harsh and in the snack sized, feverish world of tweets, shares and likes any and all messages are very easy to ignore.
If you want to sell using social media, here’s one path:
Test your message
Using 140 characters or less to basically write an ad that makes people want to retweet and click isn’t something most people can muster in real time – and yet, that’s what most try to do.
I’ve had tremendous success using Google AdWords to test very compact messages. Once I find a message that draws clicks there, I know I’ve got a winner that will get action in the form of a tweet or share.
This somewhat scientific approach is one of the most overlooked aspects of marketing in social media and it’s the primary reason people that contend you can’t sell there say so.
Target your message
Here’s another proven technique that seems lost on many marketers. Just because there are 800 million people on Facebook doesn’t mean you need to appeal to all of them.
The quickest way to get the right kind of attention is to announce “hey you 437 people that need to get better at X” I’m talking to you.
If you want to learn more about the impact of using data to form your social media messages look no further than the work Dan Zarrella is doing.
Prove your worth
It’s nearly impossible to get someone ready to buy simply by crafting a mouth-watering tweet. There’s just not enough information to develop trust.
You must make your initial relationship building all about valuable content. Give something away that you know your targeted prospect wants and needs. Move the free line to the point where your free stuff is better than most other people’s paid stuff and watch how enamored people get.
Here again, there’s nothing new about this. For years, smart marketers made tiny little inexpensive classified ads in the back of magazines like Popular Mechanics pay off nicely using this exact approach.
Engage
Now, here’s a step that just might be unique to social media and online marketing in general and it’s a very powerful one.
In the process of giving away all that great information ask your prospects to tell you things, share things, rate things and help you make the world a better place for all who inhabit it.
Seriously, create feedback forms and make that part of the deal for why you are giving away such great stuff. Socialize your content and make it easy to email, tweet and like. Send a series of emails during your content sharing phase that reinforces the important takeaways from the content and offers more engagement like email support or live Q and A sessions.
Ask for the order
Once you’ve done all this work and logically and authentically led a prospect to the place where they do indeed have some level of trust, it’s time to tell them where this journey is ultimately headed.
Paint the picture you know exists in their “current reality”, remind them of the incredible glimpse you’ve shared and then illustrate what the picture could look like.
Don’t make the mistake of assuming they will connect the dots – show them how to get the value you know you have to offer and be extremely clear about it. One of the benefits of this approach is that, if you do it right and they still don’t buy, you’ll earn the right to ask why and they’ll gladly help you understand how to get it right.
There’s nothing that magical about this approach really. Marketers have been using some form of these elements for years, but it’s the total package, including patience and hard work, that makes it pay off in the world of social media.
My Favorite Motivational Video (Ever)
Posted on 18. Jun, 2011 by Glenn Livingston, Ph.D. in AdWords, Blog, Inspiration, Pay Per Click, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
Whenever I feel a little stuck in my business or my life, I watch this video to be sure I’m not doing what this guy did, review my plans, and move on with inspiration (seriously). Thanks to Bryan Todd for sharing it with me last year!
PS – In my opinion, anyone spending more than $1,500/mo in AdWords should at some point have Bryan review their campaigns. Perry Marshall himself suggests there are many things Bryan knows about AdWords that Perry does not. Here’s my sneaky affiliate link for the consultation with Bryan Todd. Oh, and just in case you’ve never heard it, here’s a link to a very revealing interview I did with Bryan a few years back about what distinguishes the winners from those who continue to flop and flounder in Adwords
Did Google Just Create the Click to Schedule Ad Unit
Posted on 09. Jun, 2011 by John Jantsch in AdWords, Blog, Google Calendar, Hotpot, local, Local Search, Places Pages, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media
Did Google Just Create the Click to Schedule Ad Unit
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
The GMail blog team announced what looks like a much needed enhancement to Google Calendar this week called appointment slots.
This functionality allows anyone to create a public showing calendar offering up times when appointments are available. The idea is that people can visit your calendar and schedule a haircut or consulting session any time day or night.
Services such Tungle, Doodle and TimeBridge were created in some ways to fill this obvious gap. (Although they offer much functionality for, say team scheduling, you do have to wonder how hard this will hit them.)
Once the service is rolled out to all users you’ll see an extra link with the schedule box pops open that allows you to schedule blocks of time that are open for appointments. Choosing this function essentially creates another calendar and since every Google Calendar has its own personal appointments sign up page; you can embed it on your website or give the URL directly to friends and clients. You can find the URL for your appointment page at the top of the set-up page, which you can access via the Edit details link.
Right now, one major limitation appears to be the both the owner of the calendar and those scheduling an appointment must use Google Calendar – not such a big deal for internal teams, but likely a deal killer for a hair salon.
However, think about the implications of Google creating a “Click to Schedule” function for AdWords units, Places Pages, and Review Pages like those in HotPot. For many industries this could be a game changing kind of social action and another big revenue generator for Google.
From a local business standpoint it gives Google another lever into the transaction while adding functionality for both buyer and seller.
2nd Most Unusual Jungle Marketing Idea Ever
Posted on 31. May, 2011 by Glenn Livingston, Ph.D. in AdWords, AdWords Changes, AdWords Cost, Blog, Copywriting, Pay Per Click, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
(Of course, as you probably know, I’m also an affiliate, and you’ll be helping finance my “master plan” if you should buy anything after clicking and/or attending the FREE event)
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