Here are a few ad copy strategies to help make your PPC ads more relevant and generate a higher click-thru rate (CTR).

Hanging Ad Technique
Some marketers tell you that your first line should be a benefit and the second line should be a feature, but this is not necessarily true. By creating a “hanging ad” where the first line rolls into the second line (such as the ad below) gives you a better shot at having your prospect read your entire ad.
Specific Number Technique
I have tested that writing numbers in your ads can increase the click-thru rate. For example, instead of using the word “thousands,” you could use “1000’s.” I have also noticed that precise numbers also add more credibility to ads such as “12,454” rather than “12,000.”
Authority Site Technique
Some crafty advertisers have registered domain names that appear to look like reputable domain names. Advertisers realize the value of having a good display URL and will try to register domain names that look like an authority site.
For example, the domain name “www.www-doctor.com” looks almost the same as doctor.com in the display URL if the advertiser drops the “www.” prefix.

If you look at the two ads below, they look remarkably similar. The only difference being that the second ad is from an advertiser who doesn’t own the real www.doctor.com, but rather the www.www-doctor.com domain name.
Capitalization Technique
Another technique that I have seen other advertisers do to improve their click-thru rates is to capitalize each word in the display URL.
For example, for the domain www.medicaldoctor.com, you could get better results if you use www.MedicalDoctor.com in the display URL instead.

You should also test dropping the “www.” completely so you only have MedicalDoctor.com in the display URL.

You need to test these different variations to see which one has the best impact on your CTR.

The hot searched keywords are not hard to find. If you're struggling for ideas for your sites or looking to maximize hits to your sites, it's important to use popular search engine keywords. To find the most popular searched keywords, visit places below.

AOL Hot Searches

To find most searched keywords check out AOL Hot Searches for daily top searched keywords. AOL Hot Searches also lists top celebrity, top movie, top TV program, top music, top electronics, and top auto searches among others. AOL Hot Searches is also a great way to get ideas for new articles and get good keywords.

Google Trends

Google Trends is also another excellent website to find top searched keywords. Google Trends is updated throughout the day several times and lists the most top 100 searched keywords.

Yahoo Buzz

Find top search keywords on Yahoo. To see what's hot on Yahoo, check out YahooBuzz.com Yahoo Buzz updates top search engine keywords each hour. There are also several popular articles listed on the main webpage.

Lycos

Lycos is another website that lists top most searched keywords. Lycos.com lists its top 50 keywords. You can also get a free email account at Lycos.com with no advertising and virus protection.

Google Zeitgeist

For more comprehensive most searched keywords, check out Google Zeitgeist where there are links to Google Trends, trends for websites, insights for search, and hot trends information.

The following are criteria that I follow when looking at a CPA offer to promote. I will look at the advertiser’s landing page and see how they rank against the criteria below.

Headline
Clarity
Relevance
Scarcity
Social Proof
Call To Action

Also keep in mind that if you are creating your own landing page, the same criteria above should be followed.

Headline
Marketing statistics indicate that the headline is responsible for 80% of the ad copy. This means that you literally have only a few seconds to grab the attention of the prospect. Make sure that the CPA offer that you are promoting has a clear headline that captures the prospect’s attention.
Use a headline that taps into the prospect’s emotions because people generally make decisions based on their emotions rather than logic.

I have placed a link below to a killer resource that lists a ton of best headline words and phrases. This will save you time and go a long way towards helping you create killer headlines even if you suck at ad writing. You can download it for free from the link below:
http://www.payperclickformula.com/bestheadlines.html

Clarity
The landing page should be clear and concise. If you choose to promote a CPA offer that has a landing page that is confusing, you will lose the prospect. You want to make sure that the landing page has a clean design and is easy to read.

Relevance
You need to connect the dots between what your advertisement reads whether it is a banner, PPC ad, text link, etc. to the landing page. Basically the prospect should know what to expect when they click on your link. If you are not relevant to what you promised the prospect in your ad, you will be wasting the click.

Scarcity
People generally will respond to an ad where they have something to lose more than an ad that shows them how they will gain.

People do not like the fear of loss.

That is why scarcity tactics such as a time limit or quantity limit work extremely well on a landing page. For example, if you look at some diet CPA offers, they have landing pages that indicate that there are only 75 free trial offers remaining.
A time limit such as “Expires In The Next 10 Minutes” also creates the sense of urgency for the prospect to complete the offer.

A great tool to use on your landing pages to increase urgency is IM Triggers.
IM Triggers http://www.imtriggers.com

Social Proof
Social proof works well in environments where people do not know what choice they should make. The use of testimonials or endorsements works well on landing pages because they provide that social proof. If you look at dieting offers like the Acai Berry offer on the next picture:















They use celebrity names like Dr. Oz and Rachael Ray to add social proof and credibility to their landing pages. People are more prone to fill out the offer because it appears as though a credible source such as Dr. OZ or Rachael Ray has endorsed the product.

Call To Action
Try to promote CPA offers that have the “call to action” above the fold. This means that as soon as the person sees the CPA landing page on the screen, the form which they need to fill in is right there. The call to action should clearly indicate to the prospect what the next course of action should be.


Your Own Landing Page

Now if you are using your own landing, you have a little bit more control over the look. A landing page is a bridge page between your visitor and the final CPA offer. Usually a bridge page will decrease conversions because you have now created an extra click process before the prospect reads the advertiser’s web site.

But if you can pre-sell the prospect on the CPA offer, it is possible to increase conversions with a landing page before you send them to the CPA offer.

The key to making this work is to continually split-test key elements of your landing page.

This could be such items as images, colours and fonts. But most importantly, you want to test different variations of the six criteria factors I mentioned earlier.

You will want to split-test headlines, call-to-actions, social proofs, etc. It is only through this tedious process that you will be able to make improvements and increase conversions.

A great tool for gauging demand of a CPA offer is Google Insights (http://www.google.com/insights/search). Google Insights allows you to compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, and time frames.




















In the above example, you can see that I have typed in the keyword “ringtones.” Marketing for CPA ringtone offers was huge back in 2003 and 2004 and I made a lot of money promoting ringtone offers. But using a tool like Google Insights, you can clearly see that the search volume for ringtones has dropped considerably.

The search volume was at its peak in 2004 and has dropped to about 40% of its peak volume in 2009.

So although it is still possible to make money with ringtone offers, don’t expect a repeat of the glory days way back in 2004.