Larry Kim On CTR Hacks at Conversion Conference 2016

Larry Kin at Conversion Conference 2016.

DISCLAIMER: This post is written as a live blog from Conversion Conference. There may be typos and grammar to make my high school English teachers weep. Please excuse those … it’s a fast-paced conference with back-to-back sessions and no time for proofing or even proper writing.

Full coverage of the event can be found here.

And now a session I’ve been looking forward to all day.  Larry Kim from Wordstream (Edit – Larry is now with Mobile Monkey) takes the main stage for the session “4 Ridiculously Awesome Ways That Search & Social Ads Magnify CRO by 3-5x”.  This is from a guy that forgets more about paid search over breakfast than most of us know in total.

He begins with the note: small changes usually result in small changes.  Sometimes you need to make bold decisions to get significant results.

He further notes that it’s important to know what a conversion is.  A lead that doesn’t convert actually costs money so if a change drives unqualified leads it’s not a good change.

He’s talks about PPC weapons to increase CRO.    But he’s going to make us wait for the details.

Hack #1: Raise ClickThrough Rates

Why focus on CTR?  If you can get people excited to click on the ad that excitement will carry through to the site.

Another reason is that focusing on conversions only tells you what worked with people who self-identified as wanting your product.  If you focus on CTR then you’re getting a feel for your conversion rate among your total market.

Create Unicorn Ads. Don’t just use keyword insertion, create emotional triggers.  Use fear or reward.

High CTR also tells you what your market is and how your offer resonates.

Hack #2: Remarketing

While people are less likely to click a remarketing ad they do convert better.  Interestingly, the more times they saw the ad the higher the conversion rate.

The more precise the targeting the higher the engagement rate.  Facebook is great for specific demographic targeting.  Gear your ads to people based on not just core demographic data but on interests and events such as being newlyweds, etc.

You can upload client emails to Facebook and it will pull demographic data from them.  You can then use this o target new customers understanding more about who are your current customers.

Write this one on your hand.

Hack #3: Remarketing List For Search Ads

These are for Google search ads.  They allow you to not target anyone for a phrase but focus on people who have both visited your site AND searched a specific term.

This can double conversion rates.

This reduces possible conversions by reducing the potential exposure.

To increase this you can use social ads.

Hack #4: Video Ads On Facebook

We nee strong brand recall and high CTR.  Facebook Video Ads do both because people are like insects and are attracted to moving things.

The graph of targeting looks like:

Targeting

You widen the circle with reducing focus (and likely lower CTR).  This allows you to focus on the higher conversions and broader focus, track each independently and focus on the content that works for each grouping.

And it’s cheap.

Bonus Hack

Try majorly changing your offer in a huge way.  With Wordstream they recognized their free trial was too difficult to understand quickly.  So they created a quick and easy free tool to illustrate aspects of it which massively increased conversions.  They turned the offer upside down by understanding their visitors and were able to test it.

Summary

  • Raise CTR to raise conversions
  • Remarketing is a cheap source of conversions
  • RLSA have 5x better ROI than non-RLSA
  • Facebook Video Ads are awesome
  • Try changing your offer massively

Larry talks very fast and covered a lot of ground so my apologies – I wasn’t able to put everything in the post.  Just follow him on Twitter. 🙂

2 thoughts on “Larry Kim On CTR Hacks at Conversion Conference 2016

  1. So interesting! Love that idea of uploading client emails to facebook. That can be HUGE for crafting customer personas! Keep the excellent coverage coming.

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