I created the diagram below about a year ago. I use it every time I have writer’s block and completely out of ad writing ideas or when I need to brainstorm new ad texts quickly. It comes in very handy especially with content network ads since I can test as many of them as I want at the same time without fearing any repercussions on my quality scores.

Using it is quite straight forward. When you have figured out the main benefit that resonates with your customers, you navigate through the diagram brainstorming new ways to express the same idea – supplying you with an almost endless repository of test ads.

An example would be most suitable to help you fully understand how it works. Let’s say I had a business that sold a tool to help Adwords advertisers lower their adwords costs, here’s how I’d use the diagram to brainstorm new adwords ads to test…

I. Two Different Ways To Express The Same Benefit

We are always trying to go towards something or away from something. Every benefit you find can be written in the form of going towards a solution (gain) or going away from a situation (pain). Tenscores.com, for example, sells the benefit of lower Adwords costs. That can be thought of as getting lower costs or going away from high advertising costs. And here’s how that would translate in 2 different ads:

Going towards a gain or away from a pain

Notice how each variation can be said differently with synonyms. For instance lower costs can be called cheaper traffic and too expensive can be replaced by too pricey (or anything similar) thus creating new ad variations to test. Some words are far more powerful than others, up to you to find them through testing. But we’re just scratching the surface.

II. Compounding It With 7+ Different Ad Themes

Once you’ve decided in which direction you want to phrase your ad (going towards a gain vs going away from a pain), you can put a twist on them by putting the spotlight on what you offer instead of what the searcher gets.

Focus on you vs focus on searcher

In doing so you can then choose where to fall among 5 ad themes that have proven to be effective:

Informational Ad

Informational Ads
Searchers are looking for information – most of the time. Give them information that will lead them to buying your products or services. This theme is for ads that promise to teach about something.

Ad with numbers

Ads With Numbers
People are conscious about details. Numbers that convey specific details about the benefits you can provide can turn clicks and conversions in your favor.

Curiosity ad

Ads That Peek Curiosity
Can you present your product in an unusual way? Is there something uncommon about your product? Even if there isn’t, you can find something that peeks curiosity and makes people want to learn more…

As you can see, these themes can also (actually they should) be mixed together to create multiple variations of ads to test and always keep improving performance.

More curiosity

Talking about curiosity, here’s one you may have seen everywhere on the web, I didn’t come up with it but I have used variations of it and it works impressively well in the weight loss niche.

Testimonial ad

Testimonial Ads
Trust is a major factor in the decision making process. Knowing that someone else has tried what you have to offer and got results helps customers trust that what you have works. It also puts a human being’s voice in the conversation rather than the formal tone of a company.

Review ad

Review Ads
Review ads are almost like testimonials, only they invite users to read other users (or influential individuals) testimonials on the landing page. These might be easily mixed with the other types.

Ad with credentials

Ads With Awards & Credentials
Third party endorsements are very powerful especially at the end of the buying funnel where it matters most for the consumer. So are credentials in certain fields.

Of course, the themes suggest that you have a landing page that offers what you’re promising. I personally often test different themes even before creating a specific landing page for it. It allows me to find the message that resonates most with searchers and I use that information later on to create better landing pages. It saves me a lot of time.

Do you have other themes that can be added to the list? Let me know in the comments.

In case you were wondering, I do own a business that sells a tool that does help Adwords advertisers lower their costs and it does bear the name of Tenscores.com. We open the beta platform to the public about once a week, sign up here to be notified next time registrations are open or get the login details to our demo account here.

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