We would like to share some of our first and oldest findings about online advertising. Althought we still use many different type of banners with our clients there is one type we find very effective: Advance links ads. These are the ads you can engage with by starting a selection process right within the ad.
Advanced Links ads can be considered the ancestors of the ever more popular and richer widgets. Even if their functionalies are usually very limited (using 2 or 3 pull downs with a choice of answers), they provide strong engagement.
We have tested advanced links with many advertisers in different industries over many years and they brought every time a huge click-through (CTR) lift over tradional banner. An added benefit is also a lift in landing page conversions (CR).
The data below is statistically significant (+99%) and represent averages for a large spectrum of advertisers. Quick note: these results are in the same order of magnitude at the individual advertiser level.
Lift 1: Clickthrough (CTR%)
Who doesn’t want a 103% CTR lift?
Obviously many advertisers. Why does not more advertiser test advanced links ads and compare them to their banner? We often hear it’s a question of being able to have the ad’s selection of choices integrated or linked to the relevant landing page but this is not something that hard to do. A developper will only require a couple of hours to provide a potentially huge impact on your bottom line.
Some may say having such a lift may also bring a lower conversion rate. Our findings show it’s not the case…
Lift 2: Conversions (CR%)
Who doesn’t want a 2% conversion lift? Similar question, similar answer.
Getting people more engaged right at the beginning of their experience is clearly a great advantage as it also bring an increase in conversions.
This can be explained in 2 ways:
- Engagement: Having people more engaged early on make them more engaged later on too.
- Less steps: Using advanced links in ads let people start their discovery process earlier and saves steps later on. Whether it’s a sale or a lead form, letting people choose early what they want save them steps later on. Less steps = higher conversions.
Lets take the example of someone looking for a specific financial service product. If that person is looking to receive information about a financial service you can present them an advance link ad with a first pull down with a choice of different financial services, a 2nd pull down for the stage they are in their buying process and a 3rd one for, lets say, their family income.
The combination of answers gives you many actionable information to decided which landing page is better for them: the product, buying stage and family income choices let you present them automatically the most relevant landing page. The same objective is persued when you tie your landing pages to different PPC campaigns’ ads: you don’t send all you PPC clicks to the same page. Using advanced links ads provide you do the same advantage with banners and buttons.
Total lift 107%. Advanced links can be applied to almost any advertisers, products or services. Simply think about the choices a visitor needs to make on your site in order to complete your form or its purchase. Is there ways you can simplify your advertised visitors life (and yours) by engaging visitors early on with advance links ads? Almost anyone should be able to do this.
You may ask why we’re showing higher than average click-through and conversions % in the results above. This is accomplished with segmention and targeting. Presenting the right ad to the right person can go a long way. More on this in an upcoming post.
You may wonder if there are also ways to see an even bigger conversions lift from advance links (or also any other ads). There is; carry your ads’ scent to your landing pages. This will also be the subject of another post in the coming weeks.
There is a case to be made to use advance links ads in a CPM or CPA advertising model. You’re already paying for the impressions so getting highers CTR directly improve your ROI. But using these ads on advertising networks with in PPC model can be tricky if you did not improve your landing pages; you’ll see a CTR lift, higher cost but not necessarely a lift in conversions. If you are in the later case we advise you to proceed carefully.
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