Plenty Of Fish – New Ad Case Study And Some.

Posted by Mitch Sanders in Online Marketing on 11 13th, 2011 | no responses

I’m back!

Firstly, I’d like to apologise for the lack of my posts. I had a break out of hives that kept me bedridden for weeks. I was forced to eat raw catfish and pea puree for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Now I’ve lost the feeling of my top lip.

I kid; I’ve just been busy.

class="mceTemp mceIEcenter"> id="attachment_3573" class="wp-caption alignleft" style="width: 586px"> class="size-full wp-image-3573" title="mr-green-ill" src="http://www.mrgreen.am/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/mr-green-ill.jpg" alt="" width="576" height="332" /> class="wp-caption-text">I don't know why I used this image, just thought it looked groovy. Best excuse I could come up with was "Mr Green Ill" as in "Kim Jong Ill"…*crickets*

Let’s get down to business…

Plenty of Fish came out with a new ad format 310 x 110. I thought I’d give it a whirl and share my results with ya. To make things interesting, I decided to promote something a bit tougher than dating. Plenty of Fish recently added a new targetting option. You now have the option to target people who have pets. So I talked to some people who know people, and found a nice dog training lead generation offer, it was bitch’n (pun intended).

I presented myself four questions for this case study:

1. Do 310 x 110 banner ads perform better than the 110 x 80 text ads?
2. Is it better to make the 310 x 110 banners look like the 110 x 80 ads, or is it better to make the 310 x 110 banner ads stand out?
3. Do cheaper CPMs mean lower CRs?
4. Can I make a dog training lead generation offer profitable on a free dating website?

I gave myself an $ 800 budget. I have used exactly the same ad copy and imagery in all ads.

Test 1: Do 310 x 110 banner ads perform better than the 110 x 80 text ads?

class="size-full wp-image-3560 aligncenter" title="plenty-of-fish-310x110" src="http://www.mrgreen.am/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/plenty-of-fish-310x110.jpg" alt="plenty-of-fish-310x110" width="588" height="156" />

As you can see I made two identical ads; the only difference was they were served as different ad formats.

Results:

style="color: #008000;">Standard Ad: 3.3% conversion rate, 0.031% CTR | 310 x 110 ad:  4.6% conversion rate, 0.034 CTR.

The 310 x 110 just scrapped through. I did not expect such similar results.

Test 2: 310 x 1110 ad that looks like 110×80 vs a 310 x 110 that stands out.

class="size-full wp-image-3564 aligncenter" title="plenty-of-fish-310x110-2" src="http://www.mrgreen.am/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/plenty-of-fish-310x110-21.jpg" alt="plenty-of-fish-310x110-2" width="588" height="156" />

Results:

style="color: #008000;">110×80 look-alike: 4.6% conversaion rate, 0.034% CTR | Ad that stands out: 9.6% conversion rate, 0.17% CTR.

Uhhhhh what the truck just happened there!? DOUBLE the conversion rate, and exactly FIVE times the CTR. I like the colour green for many reasons, this is one of them. That just turned a very weak campaign into a contender

Oooweee I like where things are going. Time to turn the crank up a bit.

Test 3: low CPM vs high CPM.

I tested that lean green 310×110 marketing machine of an ad with a 0.41 CPM and 0.21 CPM.

Results:

style="color: #008000;">0.41 CPM: 9.6% conversion rate, 0.17% CTR. | 0.21 CPM: 6.3% conversion rate, 0.058% CTR.

CRs and CTRs dropped heavily as I dropped the CPMs. The ROI was still better on the lower CPM but volume hit the big time. Note how important it is to play with bids. In this one test I increased my CPM by 20 cents which in turn increased the CR by 50% and double the CTR. Isn’t that just swell?

Test 4: Can I make a dog training lead generation offer profitable on a free dating website?

Hells yeah! Still running at 50% ROI.