Creativity is a delicate process that requires understanding the niche, target audience, and current trends. Therefore, you won't find a universal formula for creating a banner or push notification that is guaranteed to "hit." However, there are several common practices that can increase click-through rates (CTR). In this article, we will explore how to improve the CTR of your ads.
How Many Creatives Should You Have for Testing Advertising Hypotheses?
First, it's important to note that any idea can either be successful or drive away the audience. It's impossible to predict the result in advance, which is why we recommend creating several creatives even for test launches.
Looking at the statistics of our users, we often notice that out of 4-5 creatives, good traffic comes from only one. Therefore, the first and most important advice is not to save time and resources during the creative creation phase. Prepare at least 3 options, but ideally 5+. This way, you can test more ideas at once and quickly "hit" the interests and desires of your target audience.
Common Practices That Increase the CTR of Creatives
We looked at options in the context of the iGaming niche, but they also work well in other areas.
- Names of People
Names grab attention and make the dialogue with the audience more personal. A person sees not just the opportunity to win a good sum of money in a casino but sees in the push notification that someone named Ivan has already hit the jackpot.
When preparing creatives, use popular male and female names in the GEO where the launch is planned. It’s effective to include them directly in the headline, emphasizing someone's personal experience playing in a casino or using a product.
- Mentioning Current Events
This is a bit more complex than just using names. A major event in the country is happening that affects the audience in one way or another. For example, during the sad years of the coronavirus pandemic, many people lost their jobs or a significant portion of their income due to lockdowns.
In such cases, pushes like the ones in the image below can work well. They touch on a pressing issue and immediately show that someone has solved the problem. For example, a person lost their job, but then they won in a casino and no longer need money.
If you plan to try this approach, it’s important to spend 10-15 minutes before launching your campaign studying the news background of the past couple of weeks. It's crucial to find a topic that genuinely concerns people; otherwise, this method won’t work.
- Sensational Headlines
This is a classic method in traffic arbitrage. Specialists often use sensational headlines like the example below.
- Sensations and Dream-Related Topics
They are usually used when creating landing pages. You can create news with native brand promotion, where you talk about someone winning a large amount or a man meeting 100 women through a dating app. These creatives either discuss a sensation (like a record casino win) or the dream of the target audience (winning millions in a casino and never having to worry about a low-paying job again).
- Celebrities
Using well-known personalities from the target audience in advertising helps increase trust and, consequently, boosts the likelihood of a click. The key is being prepared for possible questions about using someone's likeness without permission.
Some affiliate programs and platform owners have agreements with world sports stars, poker champions, bloggers, etc., allowing their use in offers. However, in most cases, you will need to resolve this issue yourself.
- Live Emotions
This format is only used in video advertising. For example, a person spins a slot machine and wins over $100,000. Naturally, they will react to this, which will evoke feelings of envy and excitement in the viewer, leading them to think, "I want to be like them!!!"
- Flags
National flags are a strong emotional trigger. They increase audience engagement while personalizing the offer. The key is to set the correct GEO.
How Else Can You Increase CTR?
CTR is influenced not only by the quality of the offer but also by the settings of the ad campaign. Statistics often drop due to incorrectly set parameters and lack of updates.
- Limiting the Number of Impressions
CTR often drops when ads are shown too frequently. Ads are shown to the same users repeatedly, covering irrelevant traffic, etc. As a result, costs rise, the number of impressions increases, and CTR drops.
People are only interested in new offers. If you constantly make the same offer, the target audience will stop noticing the ad or simply disable the intrusive advertising.
Overly frequent impressions are particularly damaging to push ads. Seeing the same messages, such as a girl telling you about winning an iPhone or the same woman sending a personal message, looks unnatural and even suspicious.
Therefore, we recommend limiting the number of impressions of a creative. The optimal option is 1-2 per day. This type of advertising gets the highest CTR. As the number of impressions increases, the click-through rate decreases proportionally.
This is especially noticeable in push notifications. Imagine how unnatural it looks if you're told five times a day that you've won an iPhone, or if the same girl sends you messages every time.
To avoid seeing an extremely low CTR, it’s important to set reasonable limitations on ad impressions. Statistics show that campaigns with 1-2 impressions per day yield the best results. The higher the number of impressions, the lower the success of the campaign.
- Regular Updates
Creatives have a short lifespan. They quickly lose their effectiveness and stop grabbing attention, so you should regularly try different formats and ideas. Even if you have a creative that converts well and shows good results, it's important to update its appearance and other details periodically to keep it fresh.
Conclusion
CTR isn't always equal to ROI, but it is one of the key metrics that influence the success of an advertising campaign. Therefore, make sure to try out simple tips when creating your creatives. One of them might significantly improve the performance of your campaigns.
