7 must-try marketing strategies for 2017

Larry Kim, FounderWordStream, Inc.

Jan. 11, 2016

Last Year’s Marketing Tactics

How to make 2017

Marketing

Generate…• More Leads & Sales

• Higher Conversion Rates

• Lower Costs

Note: Looking for BIG gains (+5x

Improvements) not tiny 5%

changes here.

New Marketing

Tactics & Hacks!

7 Day Forecast: Sunny in Unicorn Land

3 Random facts

about me

Make PPC Magical

Again!

1. From Manitoba, Canada. The Polar Bear Capital of the

World!!

Actual Photos From Boston Last Winter

2. Live in Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA

WordStream’s NEW Headquarters!!

2008 2017

3. Have a 2-year old Kid (#ppckid)

Larry’s Top 7 Must-Try Marketing Strategies

for 2017!

Larry’s #7 Marketing Hack: Secret Quality Score Changes

Research from October 2016:

Quality Score is More Important

Than Ever!Average QS:

6.5/10

Fewer Ad Spots on Both Mobile & Desktop, So Google Needs

to be More “Picky”!

Last Year:

+/- 1 Point

in QS

Results in

+/- 9% Ad

Impression

Share

This Year: Share Impression Share 2x More Competitive!

On Mobile: +/- 1 Point in QS Results in +/- 18% Ad Impression Share

Quality Score affects your Search CPC

10 Discounted by 50.0%

9 Discounted by 44.2%

8 Discounted by 37.5%

7 Discounted by 28.6%

6 Discounted by 16.7%

5 Google benchmark

4 Increased by 25.0%

3 Increased by 67.3%

2 Increased by 150.0%

1 Increased by 400.0%

You Save

You Pay

New Expanded Text Ads

Last Year’s Generic Text

Ads

#6 Marketing Hack: Go Nuts With Expanded

Text Ads (ETAs)

This is a Terrible Expanded Text Ads Strategy

Instead, Completely Re-Imagine Your Ads!

WSI @larrykim

Larry’s Unicorn Research Lab

A Few Crazy Ideas to Boost CTRs

CTR Idea: Kill Obvious CTAs From Headline & Move Into Sitelinks

(… Duh!)

Move CTAs to Sitelinks To Free Up Even More Room

Another CTR Busting Idea:

Blow Up Dynamic Keyword

Insertion (DKI)

Unicorns Ads Are 6x Better Than Donkey Ads!!

Avg. CTR

Donkey CTRs (Bottom 10%) = 3x Worse Than Avg.

Unicorn CTRs (Top 10%) = +2x Better Avg.A

d C

lic

k T

hro

ug

h R

ate

Ad Position

These Dynamic Keyword Insertion

Ads are All Donkeys!

Keyword Headlines Using Dynamic Keyword Insertion Do OK, Not Great

Re

lative

Fre

qu

en

cy

Avg. CTR Top 15% Top 5% Top 1%

Ads without DKIAds with DKI

DKI Headlines Less Likely To Be UnicornsR

ela

tiv

e F

req

ue

nc

y

Top 5%

Ads without DKIAds with DKI

Top 1% Relative CTR

Get DKI Out of Headline

(Free Up Even More

Room), Move DKI Into URL

Paths

Another CTR Busting Idea: Leverage Emotional Triggers!

These 9 Emotions Make People Click Like Crazy:

• Laughter

• Amusement

• Curiosity

• Awe

• Anger

• Fear

• Joy

• Empathy

• Sadness

Final CTR Boosting IDEA: Write Ad Headline Copy From Perspective of One of These Personas

The Bearer

of Bad News

The

Hero/Villain

The

Comedian

The Feel

Good Friend

Combining Emotional Hooks + Personas

Two Examples: Turning Donkeys into Unicorns!

Example 1: “Divorce Lawyer” This Ad Gets 6x The Average CTR

The Villain: Husband/Mistress

The Hero: Divorce Attorney

Emotion: Anger. Revenge.

Note: Everyone Else = Donkeys!

Example 2: “Breast Cancer Screening”(It’s OK, but Unremarkable)

The New Ad:

Emotion: Fear.

Persona: Bearer of Bad News

170% Increase in Call Volumes!

10

27

0 5 10 15 20 25 30

Positive Twist

Negative Twist Higher CTRs

= Higher

Conversion

Rates!

125% Increase in Appointments Booked!

4

9

0 2 4 6 8 10

Positive Twist

Negative Twist

Bonus Idea: Use This Plug & Play Title Template Commonly Employed By ‘Viral’ Articles

FormatList post, quiz,

Infographic

Emotional Hook

Emotional word or

superlative

Content TypeImages, quotes,

pictures, facts

TopicLove, cats, dogs,

fitness, health, Donald

Trump

4 AWESOME AD COPY STRATEGIES TO 6X CTR

Larry’s #5 Marketing Hack:

Hack Your Organic SEO Rankings with High Search CTRs

#SEOWithLarry

User Query Entered

ML Algo Makes a Guess and Re-Writes The Query

into Something it Recognizes (Query Interpretation)

Did The

Result

Satisfy The

User?

Great. Next Time I

See Queries Like

This, I’ll Put This

Page at the Top.

Larry’s Greatly Simplified Machine Learning Diagram*

*Note: Not Official Google Diagram.

Rats. Next Time I

See a Query Like

This, I’ll Try Some

Other Page

Google AdWords Entirely Based on Machine

Learning for Ad Targeting for 16 Years

Organic Search Finally Using Engagement to

Calculate Result Quality.

Larry’s #1 Experiment: What’s A Good Click Through Rate for Organic Search? (Spoiler Alert: It’s in Flux)

Org

an

ic S

ea

rch

Clic

k T

hro

ug

h R

ate

High CTR Listings Floating To Top Positions

Low CTR Listings Sinking To Bottom of Page

#UNGAGGED16

Organic Search Position

#SEOWithLarry

Does CTR Impact Rankings?

Larry’s Crazy SEO Experiment:

Obviously Ranking Impacts CTR. But How About The Reverse?

A CTR Study by. Philip Petrescu

for Moz.

+/- 3% Increase in

Post Engagement

+/- 1 Spot in

Organic Position

CTR-Based Rewards & Penalties?

Larry’s SEO Experiment: What Happens When You Make a Headline More “Clicky”?

Behold The Power of CTR Optimization

WHAT?

Page Title CTR Rank

Guerrilla Marketing: 20+ Examples & Strategies to Stand Out 1% 8

20+ Jaw-Dropping Guerrilla Marketing Examples & Strategies 4.2% 5

Massive SEO Traffic Impact! +112% in 5 Months! HOW?

#UNGAGGED16

Organic CTR Boosts Are Super Valuable!

Higher CTR = More Clicks

Higher CTR = Better Ranking

= More Clicks

Unicorn Headlines = Top 10%Odds of Finding Unicorn = 1:10

So Test 10 Different Headlines

You Need 10 *Different* Headlines!

How to Spot the Unicorn?

Quiz: How Many Ad Headlines Do You See Here?

It’s The Same Ad (With Different

Capitalization & Punctuation!!)

Use AdWords to Test Headlines

80% of Sales Come from

10% of Offers!

Most Businesses Just

Need One Unicorn Ad

and Corresponding

Offer!

Use Facebook Ads to Raise

Paid & Organic Search CTRs

Larry’s #4 Marketing Hack

Brand Affinity DRAMATICALLY Impacts CTR (+2-3x!)

Brand Affinity DRAMATICALLY Impacts CONVERSION RATES (+2-3x!)

Interests Targeting

Demographic Targeting

Upload Your Customer List to

Facebook Insights!

Use Google Analytics User

Explorer to Gain Insights To

Determine Target Market

Even Twitter Has Audience

Insights!

Larry’s #3 Marketing Hack: Fix Your Facebook

Organic Reach

User Browses Feed

ML Algo Makes a Guess and Shows User an Update

Did The

User

Engage

with Post?

Great. Next Time I

See Status Updates

Like This, I’ll show it

to the user.

Larry’s Greatly Simplified Facebook NewsFeed Diagram*

*Note: Not Official Facebook Diagram.

Rats. Next Time I

See a status

update like this, I’ll

Try Something else.

How To Tell if Your Status Update is a Unicorn or Donkey?

1. Lots of stuff (organically)

to Twitter

2. Post Top stuff from Twitter, to

LinkedIn & Facebook

3. Pay to Promote the Unicorns on

Facebook & Twitter!

The Same Stuff That

Does Great in Search

Tends To Also Do Great on Social Media

Larry’s #2 Marketing Hack: Paid Unicorn Boost with Facebook Ads

Facebook & Twitter Ads: Higher Engagement Rate = (Much) Lower Cost Per Engagement

Engagement RateCost per engagement

$.005 $.02 $.03 $.08

68%

7%

21%

37%

$3.00

1%

** They Tend To Do Great in SEO and Paid Search, Too.

The Same Campaigns That Do Great Organically Tend to Do Great in Paid Social

Larry’s Last PPC Ad Hack: Change Your Offer For Insanely Awesome CRO

Conversion Rates Are Low & Going Nowhere

Search Conversion Rate Distribution

Median: 2.35%

Top 25%: 5.31% and Above

Top 10%: 11.45%

and Above

SH

AR

E O

F A

LL A

CC

OU

NTS

SEARCH CONVERSION RATE. (WordStream Customer Data – Not Official Google Data)

Distribution Point Conversion Rate Vs. Average Comments

AVERAGE 2.35% - DONKEYS

TOP 25% 5.31% 2X AWESOME

TOP 10% 11.45% 5X UNICORNS

Donkeys vs. Unicorns

Unicorns Convert 5x Better Than Donkeys

How to Turn Conversion

Rate Donkeys

into Unicorns?

The Great A/B Testing Fairy Tale

If We Change The..

• Font Type

• Spacing

• Button Color

• Image

• Text

• Etc.

“We’ll Get a 5% Increase in Conversions”

CRO Guru

Ecommerce Example:Higher CTRs = Higher Conversion Rates

Picnic Pants* Drones

Vs.

CTR

• Picnic Pants

Drones •

Conversion Rate

Worst thing you can do: Lipstick on a Donkey

invisible

noodles?

Your Current

Offer

A Completely

Different, Better

Offer

Big vs. Little Changes

Unicorn Hill

Donkey Hill

Change Your Offer To DramaticallyIncrease Conversion Rates

What Does it All Mean?

Engagement

Rates?

5

4

3

High Engagement Rate Campaigns Will Win 2017

AdWords QSLess ad space so more important than ever.

SEO RankingsNew Machine-Learning AlgosDramatically Reward High CTR listings.

Organic SocialRecover Some Organic Social Reach with High Engagement Posts.

START/GO

(Donkey Land)

2

1

New ML-Systems Reward High Engagement Campaigns with Better Visibility & Lower Cost

Paid SocialOnly Promote High

Engagement Campaigns

CONVERTHigher Engagement = Higher Conversions

END/REPEAT

(Unicorn Land)

They All Have High Engagement in Common

Great SEOGreat

Paid/Organic Social

Great CROGreat PPC

Be a Unicorn in a Sea of Donkeys!

a)Live demo of the WordStream Advisor to learn how to manage your PPC in 20 minutes a week

b)1-1 AdWords Assessment with AdWords Certified Consultant

c) I don’t need help with my PPC

•Special Offers