Finding Blog Topics in Unexpected Places is Fun!
Mar 12th, 2008 by msdanielle
Sometimes the best topics to write about come during the most unexpected times — like when you’re driving down the street and you see a funny billboard so you stop to take a picture, or when your kid does something hilariously cute and you’ve caught it on video, or like when you’re checking your Gmail and you’ve come across an email relating to PPC and you see these ads next to it:
I love coming across stuff like this because personally I find it entertaining to see what advertisers are doing in their ads to attract their audiences. I’ve blocked out the URLs so not to give promotion to these ads while I scrutinize them.
Of course, Google’s ad is first, I don’t care about hiding their URL. In fact, if you read my blog, you know I’ve promoted time and time again the use of their Website Optimizer. I will say though that they could have capitalized “Free” but that’s just me. Anyway, please do check out the tool. 
The second ad I find amusing since it reads “Unlimited PPC Traffic.” I thought PPC traffic was limited to the number of searches performed but I guess I have a lot to learn. 
And triple doesn’t sound unlimited!
As for ad three, the last “Why…?” seems redundant and unnecessary to me, don’t you think? Ad four just looks messy. Why is the first line in all lower case and The Second Line Is In All Mixed Caps? The ad doesn’t even make sense, it’s a keyword-stuffed nightmare!
And the best one is of course saved for last. “PPC Doesn’t Work.” Hehe.
OK back to my email!
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Wow. What a bunch of poorly written ads. Makes me wonder what kind of results they get. I wonder if any of them even test anything.
lol i really wonder about that last one, i mean i think i know where they’re trying to go with it, but there’s no “it doesn’t work because….” it’s just “it doesn’t work and you suck.” where is the solution?
and how the heck do you get “unlimited” ppc traffic?
The title alone of the last ad made me giggle.
Dropping the number 37 is also a nice touch. Makes it all sound that bit more accountable. It offers what every gambler hopes to find one day; The winning system 
I must admit that I think ad 3 is quite good. A huge number of smaller companies open AdWords accounts and start… well, basically gambling with their ad spend only to realise 2 or 3 months down the line that they are wasting their money because they don’t know how to get a decent conversion out of the new visitors, nevermind the fact that they will rarely, if ever a/b test ad versions nor will they optimally position-bid ads. Why… why?… I think this is something a growing number of new users who don’t think they can afford to outsource the work would like to know.
Repeating the word why? Not sure, but I think ending this particular ad with the question is good. I think it adds value to the ’secrets’ they can share with you; IF you click
Danielle,
Thanks for the good post. It is interesting to think about how PPC has made me more aware. I find myself looking at ads and thinking, “I could do better than that”…. Honestly I probably couldn’t, but I can point out some flaws with an ad here or there
ryan, i am sure you can could come up with some good variations of those ads. come on…
That has just cheered me up. I never took as much notice of ad links til you have just pointed it out. I think you should start a contest for the best worst ad on the net ;o)
yea i usually have ad blindness but since the email was about ppc, the ad headlines caught my attention. the worst ads will be these types of content ads since CTR doesn’t affect their placement. in search, if your ad sucks, it will slowly make its way down the listings if the CTR is very low. content ads are purely for entertainment
jk
I seldom to that, get a glass of iced-milk and few pieces of cookies, bring my laptop outside of the night and start to make some post.
but PPC topic? maybe later when my newbie blog is ready.