Choose your words carefully: Education editionHow word choice can make or break pay-per-click search ads

Education is a multi-billion dollar market.

Is your search campaign working as hard as it can to capture some of that?

The researchers at Bing Ads recently tackled a couple of

big questions about performance for PPC education ads.

What combinations of words in the title and description get the highest Ad Quality ranking?*

*Ad Quality is a calculation which factors in both the clickability (the likelihood of an ad being clicked, agnostic of position) of the ad and other indicators of ad quality. Ads with better ad quality not only have a better CTR, they get rewarded with better ad ranking and lower CPCs than other ads with lower ad quality.

Does this change depending on what device the audience is using?

We analyzed

100,000+ ads running on the Yahoo Bing Network.

These ads generated 15 million impressions.

1 ad on the Yahoo

Bing Network reaches

168 million searchers

5.5 billion monthly searches on

Yahoo Bing Network

We limited our study to

January 2013.

The phrases and/or

words we analyzed

had to appear in

ads from at least

10 advertisers

We analyzed more

than 20 of the most

commonly used

words/phrases

We analyzed word

choice and

clickability across

devices: PC, mobile

and tablet

Take note

Microsoft Confidential

There is no prescriptive set of ad copy that will generate the same results across devices. People use different devices for different things – they don’t look for the same info on their PC as they do on their phone.

Across the board, in every category, you’ll get

a significant lift (54% or more!) in clicks if you add Sitelinks to your ad.

Here’s how to read a heatmapA

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Accredited

At Home

Bachelors Degree

Career

Certification

Classes

College

Degree

Diploma

DKI

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Financial Aid

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Master's Degree

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Profession

Program

School

Training

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NoVar

Insufficient dataGreat Good Poor

Our study results show that an education services ad with “at home” in the title and “profession” in the description has high ad quality.

Ad Description

Earn your degree at home

KaplanUniversity.edu

Nutrition science, child nutrition

Education Services ad performance heatmap ̶ All devicesA

d T

itle

Ad Description

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Accredited

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Diploma

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Financial Aid

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Learn More

Master's Degree

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Profession

Program

School

Training

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Insufficient dataGreat Good Poor

Two significant things rapped our knuckles right away:

1. People looking for education information match their devices: PC users want “at home” opportunities. Mobile users respond to hurry-up words like “earn” and “learn more.”

2. Some of the most clicks in our study go to education ads with “Film” in the title or description – but relatively few ads are serving on that keyword. There’s a great market opportunity for film schools!

Education: Top word combos

Mobile

TITLE DESCRIPTION

Bachelor’s degree Program

Bachelor’s degree University

Learn more Program

Accredited Learn more

Bachelor’s degree Geo

Tablet

TITLE DESCRIPTION

School Career

Enroll now School

Profession Career

Earn Bachelor’s degree

At home Learn more

PC

TITLE DESCRIPTION

School Career

At home At home

At home Earn

Profession Career

At home Profession

Ads with “school” in

the title and “career”

in the description do

well on both PC and

tablet, but are dunces

on the mobile users

screen.

Insights by device

PC users appear very

focused on education

opportunities that can

be accomplished

online, “at home”.

Mobile users seem

very specific in their

education search –

they already know

they’re interested in

a Bachelor’s degree

from a university.

Tablet users appear

open to possibility,

responsive to a range

of calls-to-action

(“Learn more”, “Earn”

and “Enroll now”).

Education Services ad performance heatmap ̶ PCA

d T

itle

Insufficient dataGreat Good Poor

Acc

red

ited

At

Ho

me

Bach

elo

rs

Deg

ree

Care

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Cert

ific

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In

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ivers

ity

No

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Accredited

At Home

Bachelors Degree

Career

Certification

Classes

College

Courses

Degree

Diploma

DKI

Earn

Enroll Now

Financial Aid

Geo

Learn More

Master's Degree

Online

Profession

Program

School

Training

University

NoVar

Ad Description

Insights for ads served on PC

“Learn more” in the ad title

is a solid performer, regardless

of what words are in the ad

description.

Being specific about the career

and profession (“Culinary” or

“dental assistant”) in either ad

title or ad description (or both

together) draws clicks.

Surprisingly, “financial aid”

is not a strong pull when used

in any part of the search ad,

and only attracts attention when

used in the ad description, with

“accredited” in the ad title.

Education Services ad performance heatmap ̶ MobileA

d T

itle

Insufficient dataGreat Good Poor

Acc

red

ited

At

Ho

me

Bach

elo

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Deg

ree

Care

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Cert

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id

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In

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ivers

ity

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Accredited

At Home

Bachelors

Degree

Career

Certification

Classes

College

Courses

Degree

Diploma

DKI

Earn

Enroll Now

Geo

Learn More

Master's Degree

Online

Profession

Program

School

Training

University

NoVar

Ad Description

Insights for ads served on mobile

Mobile users are responsive to

ads with “accredited” in the

ad title in combination with

any of the relevant words in the

ad description.

Being specific with a profession

(“film”, “fashion design”) in

the ad title is a solid bet when

used in combination with most

of the relevant words in the

ad description.

“Enroll now” is a lackluster

performer no matter where you

put it in your ad. This is likely

because the actual admissions

process for education services

tends to be complex, and would

require more information from a

providers website.

Ad Description

Education Services ad performance heatmap ̶ TabletA

d T

itle

Insufficient dataGreat Good Poor

Acc

red

ited

At

Ho

me

Bach

elo

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Deg

ree

Care

er

Cert

ific

ati

on

Cla

sses

Co

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e

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urs

es

Deg

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Dip

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Earn

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ow

Fin

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cial

Aid

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Learn

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s

Deg

ree

On

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Info

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Accredited

At Home

Bachelors

Degree

Career

Certification

Classes

College

Courses

Degree

Diploma

DKI

Earn

Enroll Now

Geo

Learn More

Master's Degree

Online

Profession

Program

School

Training

University

NoVar

Insights for ads served on tablets

Once again, education ads that

use specific professions in the

ad title (“pharmacy”, “criminal

justice”) fare well when used

with most other relevant words

in the ad description.

Being specific with a profession

(“film”, “fashion design”) in

the ad title is a solid bet when

used in combination with most

of the relevant words in the

ad description.

Action-oriented words in

either the ad title or the ad

description, such as “earn”,

“learn more” and “request info”

can be solid performers for

tablet users.

Before you pour this awesome info into your search ads, consider

three important things:

ONE Test. Then test again. Test some more.

Testing is critical to understanding your ad copy performance across devices, categories and time periods.

TWO Use sitelinks.

Understand the value of sitelink lift and the impact it could have on an entire account. Implement and spread to all your ads.

THREE Scale your execution to all your ads.

Develop a framework for understanding the clickability of your ads and executing top performers on a large scale.

Variable bucket definition

Unless specifically called out below, most buckets mirror the variation of the keyword phrase. For example, “earn” bucket includes: “earn a”, “earn your”, “earn an”.

Profession bucket includes: film, fashion design, RN, pharmacy, care, criminal justice, culinary arts, technician and other lines of professional jobs.

Degree bucket includes: variations of degree terms, or a specific degree, such as nursing degree, design degree, and associate degree.

DKI stands for Dynamic Keyword Insert, including medical bill, pharmacy, pharmacy tech, business, and Le Cordon.