4 Ridiculously Awesome Ways Search & Social Ads Magnify CRO by 3-5X #ConvCon

You’re tuned in to Conversion Conference. Larry Kim, founder of WordStream and 2015 Search Personality of the Year, explains the situation. A diabolical villain has abducted our conversions. Our boss at the impossible mission force (IMF) is trying to frame us. Larry’s going to help us avoid danger and get the conversions BACK!

Larry’s A/B #1 Testing Epiphany: The Great A/B Test Is a Fairy Tale

He’s done this test thousands of times for hundreds of customers. The early lead disappears and the gains don’t persist over time. The reason is that the reason it worked was because it was new and exciting and then eventually it’s not exciting.

Larry’s #2 A/B Testing Epiphany: There’s a Confirmation Bias

Small changes usually result in small changes.

Larry’s #3 A/B Testing Epiphany: CRO Just Increases Quantity of Leads at the Expense of Quality (in Lead Gen)

You might have more leads but it takes more time to figure out if they’re any good.

Larry’s #4 A/B Testing Epiphany: Average Conversion Rates Are Low and Haven’t Changed Much in Years

Everyone is doing all this A/B testing, why isn’t the average going up?

What is needed are new CRO weapons and strategies.

Use PPC weapons:

In addition to the focus on landing pages, there should be an equal or greater focus on up-stream activities.

Larry will equip us with the weapons of success for this impossible mission. Larry’s background is in electrical engineering. He’s also got an impossibly adorable 2-year-old #ppckid.

Larry’s #5 Crazy PPC CRO Hack: Focus on the Click-Through Rates

Generally, the higher the click-through rate, the higher the conversion rate. If you can get people excited to click, you can get the conversion.

What’s the big difference between click-through rate and conversion rate? A conversion rate is biased. You must use CTR to figure out if your offer sucks or not.

How to write unicorn ads: the top 1% of ads based on CTR (like 20-40% CTR)

He built a program to detect what these ads are and what the qualities are:

1. Focus on keywords with HIGH commercial intent (as opposed to informational queries)
2. Use ad customizers to create urgency and fear of missing out (FOMO)
3. The hack: use EMOTIONAL triggers in ad copy. The best ads aren’t written in the persona of the company. There are four voices that the ad might be written in:
   • the bearer of bad news
   • the hero/villain
   • the comedian
   • the feel-good friend

Here’s an example ad that is a unicorn:

Key takeaway: Ad CTR tells you if people are into your offers or not.

Larry’s #4 Crazy PPC CRO Hack: Remarketing on Google Display Network and Facebook Ads

Greater brand exposure dramatically increase conversion rates. Users may be less inclined to click on an ad that is following them around BUT if they do click on it, they’re highly likely to convert. With precise ad targeting, you can boost engagement rate. Refine ad targeting for specific purchasing behavior:

• media
• mobile device user
• purchase behavior
• residential profile
• seasonal and events

Larry thinks demographic ad targeting in Facebook is like super remarketing. You’re targeting people who visited your site and also are in your target audience. Behold the power of super-remarketing on Facebook & Twitter:

• Behavioral & Interest Targeting: they’re interested in your stuff
• Remarketing: they recently checked out your stuff
• Demographic Targeting: They can afford to buy your stuff

Super remarketing allows you to target a narrow audience that meets all three of the above criteria … resulting in $$$.

“Well Larry, how do I know who my target market is?” Use Facebook Audience Insights to determine target market. Upload your best customer emails and Facebook will analyze your audience for you.

Larry’s #3 Crazy PPC CRO Hack: Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA)

Remarketing lists for search ads = Google search ads shown only to people who recently visited your site.

Target search ads only to people who recently visited your site. Users visit yoru site, get added to your remarkeitng lists. Show them customized ads when they search on Google. People familiar with your brand are 2-3x more likely to convert than people not familiar with your brand.

You can also target by email. Email audience targeting = 10X CTR vs. generically targeted keywords.

The greatest strength of RLSA is that you’re cherry-picking the awesome cheap conversions. The drawback is that you’re not targeting all the other people who aren’t familiar with your brand. How do you solve the problem of getting conversions for cheap and lots of them? Social media ads!

How advertising REALLY works:

1. Promote inspirational/memorable content about your brand to your target market
2. People see the ad, but don’t necessarily take action right away (but become biased)
3. Later, when the need arises, people either do a branded search for your stuff or do an un-branded search but are still biased toward clicking and buying from you.

Larry’s #2 Crazy PPC CRO Hack: Video Ads on Facebook

We like RLSA because conversions were cheap but we couldn’t reach enough people.

We want:

1. Strong brand recall (lots of ad impressions)
2. High CTR (high ad engagement)

Video ads provide both!

LovePop Cards did a video ad to remarket to people who visited their site. It’s saturated with product and color and movement and leverages emotional triggers.

Here’s Larry’s video ad targeting stack:

Larry’s #1 Crazy PPC CRO Hack: Lead Ads on Facebook

This is a new ad format that lets people sign up with stuff on mobile with one button tap. There’s only one field needed, email. What this does is eliminate the landing page — the biggest bottleneck in the funnel.

Email unlocks over 10k interests, demographics and behaviors. The email that gets sent to you is their Facebook login email which allows you infinite ad segmentations.

You have to pay money to target these people, but it’s like $3 or $4 for thousands of impressions.

Larry’s Bonus Hack: Change Your Offer in a Big Way

WordStream changed their offer from a free trial to a free AdWords performance grader. There’s big and little changes. If you only think of the on-page elements, you’re taking your current offer and finding a local maximum. It might be better to throw out your current offer and find a different, completely different offer. PPC gives you the perspective of different data to find out how your offer is resonating in the world.

There’s tons of leverage around higher in the funnel. A lot of the tools Larry shared here have only been around for 18 or 24 months. We get to adjust!

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Virginia Nussey is the director of content marketing at MobileMonkey. Prior to joining this startup in 2018, Virginia was the operations and content manager at Bruce Clay Inc., having joined the company in 2008 as a writer and blogger.

See Virginia's author page for links to connect on social media.