3 Simple Psychology Hacks to Improve Your Ads

Coming from a background in Psychology, it’s difficult to ignore the many areas where Psychology and Marketing meet – especially when it comes to creating ad copy that appeals to potential customers. One of the most important tasks of any marketer is to understand why people think and act the way they do; after all, if you know your audience, you know how to better target them. Luckily, you don’t need a degree to apply some basic principles to your account. Here are three quick and easy ways to enhance your ad copy with Psychology:

1. Use the principle of urgency to improve CTR

In sales, creating a sense of urgency in your customer is your friend. The anxiety that comes from urgency has been proven to lead people to think and act less rationally, which can be the difference between making that impulse purchase or not.

Implementing countdown timers in your ad copy is a quick way to create a sense of urgency in your customers. Use them and leave your customers feeling like they can’t afford to ignore your ad! Adding countdown timers to your ad copy is as easy as adding the following snippet to your headline or description lines:  “{=“

After typing that simple code, the following box will pop up asking you to set the start and end date of your countdown. Your ad copy will then dynamically count down from your start date to end date. It’s that simple.

2. Use the isolation effect to stand out from your competitors

When you search for something online, have you ever noticed how similar the language is in every piece of ad copy? Doesn’t that make it so difficult for a single ad to stand out, no matter how eloquently it is written? The phenomenon of banner blindness has resulted in up to 86% of internet users ignoring banner ads. Although changes have made PPC adverts appear much more natural and organic in recent years, how can a marketer create ad copy that beats banner blindness?

The isolation effect predicts that people are much more likely to focus on and remember an item if it is substantially different from those around it. In other words, the human mind is wired to spot the unusual and ignore the similar. When it comes to creating ad copy, it is easy to see what your competitors are doing and try to follow suit in the belief that if everyone else is doing it that way, it must be the best way! Next time, why not try creating ad copy that is completely different in tone, style and content to your competitors.

Use humour, creative adjectives, rhyme… anything you can think of to stand out and catch the viewer’s eye. A customer may just pay attention!

3. Exploit social validation to increase conversions

When it comes to shopping online, a major influence on purchases is the opinion of others. According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, behind food and shelter, the need for belonging has the biggest influence on behaviour. Due to this, when it comes to making a decision, a person is much more likely to follow through if they have other people to validate that their decision is a good one.

One easy way to help validate potential customers is to include your business reviews to your ad copy through ad extensions. People are much more likely to trust the opinion of a fellow customer than a business.  Because of this, positive reviews will help reassure the customers in their decision to trade with you, increasing the chances of them following through with their transaction.

If you own a Google Certified Shop, review extensions can be set up in minutes.

The next time you create your ad copy, make sure you think about the customer at the other side and not just the figures.  Apply these principles and get into your customers heads – your conversion rate will thank you.