The EA logo is why they weren't clicking the first ad. I don't know about other people, but I avoid EA at all costs.
Throw Out Everything You Know About Ads
91–100 of 128 posts
Re: Throw Out Everything You Know About Ads
#92I work with many MBA colleagues and whenever they encounter an ugly, but effective (ie. converting) ad, they can never drop their egos to accept that such an ad can work. They just feel they cannot "stoop that low" to adopt these techniques.
They would often blindly push for "simplicity", "sparse text", "nice picture", and when these ads go out to market, they get absolutely crushed.
One of the tragedies of a big wealthy company is that marketers can continually go out with these crappy creatives that don't sell and there really is no big consequence. It is often written off as a "learning opportunity".
Whereas if you look at the ads of people whose lifeblood depends on selling their product, they may not be the most attractive ads, but the ads that persist over time tend to be effective (ie. they sell). These guys need to eat, and they can only afford to make stupid ineffective ads for so long before they starve! So there are definitely some practical lessons that can be learned from them. They often knowingly or unknowingly follow the principles of advertising legend David Ogilvy.
Their ads tend to hit on direct marketing best practices:
- headline states in plain language what the product does (ie. no MBA jargon/buzz words)
- headline also hooks the reader to read a bit more
- it is clear who the product is for
- copy combats any objections in reader's mind
- no distractions that divert reader from clicking the "Join Now" button
- contains customer testimonials reader can relate to (ie. social proof)
- gives reader enough information on the page to make a decision (ie. none of this sparse text BS if it doesn't make sense)
Re: Throw Out Everything You Know About Ads
#93Besides the novelty factor (which others have mentioned), his 'paint' version is also much simpler, and therefor much easier to understand at a quick glance. - Large text - Not very much text - A single image - A single visual flow (top to bottom) - A concise color palette (greens and black) Compare to the 'standard' ad, where: - Text is too small - Too much text - Too many images competing for attention - Muddled vi…
I think another big factor is probably a white background vs. a black background. Bill Watterson said he avoided making strips with dark backgrounds too often because the human eye is drawn away from dark to light.
I would like to see an A/B test of the same basic artwork on a black background vs. the white one.
Re: Throw Out Everything You Know About Ads
#94This is actually well known among savvy internet marketers. And it's why those tips for belly/whitening/wrinkles "invented by a local mom" always look far from professional. It works because: - It stands out from the content - It defeats ad-blindness - It's not expected, so it makes you curious If this style becomes the norm, users will learn to mentally filter ads made in Paint as well.
>>"invented by a local mom" That is the first flag that it is a scam.
For you and I it is, but we are not its target audience.
Re: Throw Out Everything You Know About Ads
#95Besides the novelty factor (which others have mentioned), his 'paint' version is also much simpler, and therefor much easier to understand at a quick glance. - Large text - Not very much text - A single image - A single visual flow (top to bottom) - A concise color palette (greens and black) Compare to the 'standard' ad, where: - Text is too small - Too much text - Too many images competing for attention - Muddled vi…
You forget to mention the prominent use of the word Free. People love that word.
Anytime someone emphasizes free, I instantly start to think where's the catch. Something like: "FREE TRIAL!!" - "wanna spam me with email?"
Re: Throw Out Everything You Know About Ads
#96I work with many MBA colleagues and whenever they encounter an ugly, but effective (ie. converting) ad, they can never drop their egos to accept that such an ad can work. They just feel they cannot "stoop that low" to adopt these techniques. They would often blindly push for "simplicity", "sparse text", "nice picture", and when these ads go out to market, they get absolutely crushed. One of the tragedies of a big wea…
I'd like to warn people about cheesy customer testimonials. Nothing says "scam" just like testimonials can.
http://www.nuratrim.com/before-and-after-photos-21-c.asp
Re: Throw Out Everything You Know About Ads
#97I remember seeing this ad (or one similar) in the Draw Something game a few days ago.
The context here helps immensely, I think. Draw Something is a game that's about crude drawing, showing an ad that's a crude drawing is the ultimate targeted ad.
Re: Throw Out Everything You Know About Ads
#980.137 CTR is seriously low regardless, 0.049% CTR is incredibly low!
Not for social. http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/14/page-post-ctr/ quotes an average click through rate for Facebook ads of 0.05% (not the headline 0.14% which is about Facebook Pages CTR), so 0.049% is close to average and 0.137% is an excellent CTR for Facebook ads.
Perhaps. However the standard deviation for a Bernoulli trial is sqrt(Npq) where p = 0.00049 and q = 1 - p.
The two trials are not significantly different.
Re: Throw Out Everything You Know About Ads
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
You forget to mention the prominent use of the word Free. People love that word.
Anytime someone emphasizes free, I instantly start to think where's the catch. Something like: "FREE TRIAL!!" - "wanna spam me with email?"
I do as well, but we're outliers. In an A/B test, the version which emphasizes free usually wins. I've even seen it beat an offer of getting paid to do something.
Re: Throw Out Everything You Know About Ads
#100Is no one worried about the image and association you create by the advertising campaign? I kind of feel like you dilute the overall brand value by going with low stupid tactics - it may create value in the short term, but does that translate into a stronger brand in the long run just because it has more people?