# Symptom-focused PPC headline and description: higher ad CTR

- Outcome: Won
- Page type: Ad (Lead-gen)
- Elements: Ad copy, Headline
- Date shared: 2012-09
- Test run by: [MarketingExperiments](https://liftarchive.com/practitioners/marketingexperiments/)
- Commentary by: LiftArchive (our analysis, not theirs)
- Original source: https://marketingexperiments.com/a-b-testing/customer-theory-increases-ppc-ctr
- Page: https://liftarchive.com/test/back-pain-provider-ppc-symptom-copy/

PPC ads that used symptom-focused copy in both the headline and an ad-group-specific description beat the existing ads on clickthrough in every ad group. MarketingExperiments (MECLABS) ran the test for a medical provider treating chronic back pain. The post's title reports a 40% CTR increase, but the detailed numbers were only shown in an image.

## Result

**higher ad CTR**

- Ads with symptom content in both headline and description performed better across all ad groups.
- The post's headline reports a 40% increase in clickthrough rate. Per-ad-group figures, sample sizes and confidence were not shared in text.
- Headline-only and description-only versions were also tested, which lets you see that using both places mattered.

## Control

The existing PPC ad in each ad group, taken from the winner of an earlier content-approach test.

## Variant

The winning treatment put symptom-focused content in both the headline and a description written for the specific ad group. Other treatments used symptom content in the headline only or the description only.

## Why it likely won (our reading)

- People searching for a condition often describe how it feels, so ads that mirror their symptoms match what they typed.
- Matching the description to each ad group kept the copy specific rather than generic.
- The test built on a lesson from an earlier test, so it started from a stronger idea.

## Caveats

Results were only published as an image, so the per-group numbers and significance could not be checked. This is 2012 search ad data, and ad platforms have changed a lot since.

## How to run this test

- Hypothesis: If we describe the searcher's symptoms in both the ad headline and an ad-group-specific description, then more condition-based searchers will click because the ad mirrors how they describe their problem.
- Primary metric: Clickthrough rate per ad group
- Guardrail: Landing page conversion rate (leads or bookings)
- Guardrail: Cost per lead
- Guardrail: Quality score or ad relevance
- Who should test it: Lead-gen businesses in healthcare, legal or home services where people search by problem or symptom. Less useful when searchers already know the brand or the exact service they want.

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Credit: MarketingExperiments ran this test and owns the result. Summary and commentary by LiftArchive (https://liftarchive.com/test/back-pain-provider-ppc-symptom-copy/).
Usage: Free to use, quote and build on, with credit and a link: name the practitioner or organization that ran the test and link to its LiftArchive page. The results belong to the practitioners who ran and shared them; the summaries and commentary are LiftArchive's.