Creating an effective PPC ad can seem overwhelming.  What is it about your ad that will get the click over another ad?  Or, at all for that matter?  You have a limited number of characters to say everything you want people to know about your site or product.

With PPC, keep in mind that you are competing for CLICKS and that generally, the customer is not quite ready to buy yet.  Your #1 goal is to get the potential customers to click on your ad, which should take them to your optimized landing page and guide them through your sales funnel.

Below are 3 questions to keep in mind when creating your ad:

1)      Does your offer have appeal? The very first connection you need to make with a potential customer is establishing the relevance between the message of your offer and the motivations of the customers.

2)      How exclusive is your offer? Is this offer (or an even better offer) available in other places?  If you are promoting in a saturated market, there needs to be something that you can offer to distinguish you from your competition.  This could be your level of expertise, offering free shipping/an exclusive discount, guaranteeing your service/product, etc.

3)      How credible is your offer? Make sure that the claims you are making are believable.  Substitute broad, sweeping claims (e.g. Best offer EVER!) for statements with specific facts/figures.

Posted May 27th 2011 to Internet Marketing • Comments (1)

Banner ads can be an effective advertising option to draw potential customers to your website.  The first obstacle you will face as an advertiser is optimizing your banner ads for attracting attention from visitors.  Most likely, your ads are competing with surrounding ads and content.  Help your banner ads break through the noise by keeping the following factors in mind when creating your ad:

1) Use bold contrasting colors- think about the site you’re advertising on and try to stand out.

2) Size matters- keep in mind not only the size of the banner ad itself, but the size of the design details in your ad (text, images, etc).  Instead of making everything big and oversized, make the important details stand out.

3) Motion- animated banners receive 30-40% more attention than standard text ads.

4) Text- You only have so much space to grab visitor attention and your ad needs to be immediately understandable.  Always include a clear call to action.

Posted May 03rd 2011 to Uncategorized • Comments (3)