Write Winning Adwords

I am an affiliate in a highly competitive niche. It’s one that attracts some very big names who have much deeper pockets than I do. Yet, I pay less than half per click than they do, and I sit in ad position #2. And am ready to raise my ad spend to boost traffic and make some serious money.

Here are the details…

The affiliate program had a list of suggested ads. I chose the one which I thought would have the highest response and wrote an ad based on my own system. After four days, it was clear which ad was winning the click-through battle.

The one I wrote.

At the same time, I was reducing my cost per click and maintaining my ad position. And reduced my keyword list from 30 to 3 high performing keywords.

Then I made one change that doubled my CTR.

I eliminated the poor performing ad that was written by the affiliate program manager and tested a second ad I wrote against the first. The interesting thing is I just moved two words. I recognized the fact that my three keywords all had one thing in common. And that one thing was not in the headline of my ad.

Sure, the keyword was in the body copy – a couple times. But I was using a different term that meant the same thing in the headline. Yet even with this oversight, the ad was performing at 7.21% CTR.

When I changed that ONE WORD, and tested against the first ad, the new ad clicks through at 16.94%.

Needless to say, I was stunned at the difference. But not surprised. Paying attention to the details in your Adwords ads can double – or even more – your clickthrough rates.