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Using ASCII Art on Google Adwords - Brilliantly Innovative!

January 9th, 2008 by Vishen Read more about Articles

Sixt, a major car rental company in Germany made headlines in the marketing world when it experimented with a new way to make its Google Adwords ads stand out from the crowd.

Enter “Mietwagen” into Google Germany and you see this.

Picture 3-3

In a word only environment, this made their ads certainly standout.

But more importantly - it lead to a 47% more clicks than before.

Thanks to BannerBlog.Com.Au for bringing this to our attention.

About the Author

Vishen Vishen is a co-founder of MindValley. Before MindValley, he was an exec in Silicon Valley and New York for several internet and technology firms. He turned bedroom entrepreneur at 27 and by the time he was 31 had founded 6 web businesses and never had to work a conventional job again.

Check out other posts by Vishen

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53 Responses to “Using ASCII Art on Google Adwords - Brilliantly Innovative!”

  1. Olympic Version » Blog Archive » Using ASCII Art on Google Adwords - Brilliantly Innovative!

    […] Original post by Vishen […]

  2. Tom

    I read the comments on BannerBlog.com.au and they are mentioning that this ad would never have been accepted with multiple punctuation marks in the ad. I remember getting my ads rejected (not even able to save) when I clicked on submit. Do you guys know if there was a work-around on this, or perhaps this is a hoax (albeit a great idea!)

  3. Sixt wirbt mit ASCII-Adwords-Anzeigen

    […] via MindValley Labs […]

  4. Adwords ASCII Art

    […] via MindValleyLabs […]

  5. ASCII Google AdSense Werbung

    […] Über MindValleyLabs wurde ich auf Sixt’s sehr geile AdWords Werbung fündig. Der Banner langweilt die User nicht mit einem monotonenem Text, sondern stellt euch gerade ein sehr nettes ASCII Bild zur Verfügung. Ob da ein .nfo Maker am Werke war? Ein Bonus: Schaut nicht nur faszinierend innovativ aus, es wurden mit dieser neuen Technik auch die Klickraten um bis zu 47% gesteigert. […]

  6. john

    The German ad approval team must be a lot more lenient than in the US. I’ve tried several similar tactics and have been disapproved every single time.

  7. Mentifex

    ASCII art has also been used to meme-spread mind-diagrams of artificial intelligence.

  8. jens

    doesn’t work just the normal sixt results are shown.

  9. Jack @ Tech Teapot

    How did they get the same website URL onto 3 seperate ads at the same time. I thought you could only have one at a time? Nice idea though. Surprised that the adwords moderators allowed it though.

  10. Geo

    But clicks for cuteness hurt your cost of sale ratio! You Don’t wnat casual clickers or entertainment clickers.
    You usually don’t want clicks unless someone is clicking because they will buy your product when they get to the landing page.
    I would click that too but not because I wanted to buy a car thus I would cost that company a needless 10 cents. It’s exactly what you DON’T want.

    The beauty of google adwords is you can describe specifically what you are selling and only get filtered people who click on it. You don’t want unfiltered people to click.
    Thus google pays to deliver all the ads that don’t get clicked and you only pay for ones that will likely make you sales.

    This picture thing likely destroys that click sale ratio because people will click purely for novelty.

  11. Sam

    Did you ever read the adword TOS?

    may be this can help
    http://services.google.com/awp/en_us/breeze/7338/index.html

  12. Detlev

    fake. doesn’t show up at all on google.de etc. “THIS” is their way to market.

  13. TJIC

    Looking for it at 2:30 pm EST, on 9 Jan, I don’t see it.

    Removed?

  14. Dan Perry

    Wow! How come I’m not smart enough to think of that? I’ll be the CTR is through the roof, just for the coolness factor.

    Maybe use ASCII for the landing page too? NOW we’re getting somewhere.

    Thanks for sharing.

  15. Detlev

    little more indept on my previous post:

    1. google would not allow it.
    2. “THIS” is their marketing move. to bring this fake ‘ascii’ act to the media/world and make everyone go “wow, cool” while they spam their SIXT name all over.

  16. Thinking outside the box: German edition

    […] (Found the story here, they got the word from here and they got from where-else-but Australia (watch the movie). See how I give credit? Ahh…. I’m such a cool blogger….). […]

  17. ASCII Art on Google Adwords - BlackHatCrew - Elite Webmaster SEO Forum

    […] ASCII Art on Google Adwords Sixt, a major car rental company in Germany made headlines in the marketing world when it experimented with a new way to make its Google Adwords ads stand out from the crowd. Enter “Mietwagen” into Google Germany and you see this. In a word only environment, this made their ads certainly standout. But more importantly - it lead to a 47% more clicks than before. source: Using ASCII Art on Google Adwords - Brilliantly Innovative! __________________ My Ratios :: My Blacklist […]

  18. livejamie

    doesn’t appear that way in search results currently

  19. chris

    excellent idea! smart marketing

  20. Ash Haque

    Looks like it’s been taken off :-(

  21. Jyothirmayee

    Terrific stuff! But I wonder if Google really let this ad approved.

    As far as my understanding goes Google’s ad verification algorithms which can detect errors in spelling, punctuation and even grammar should have warned/alerted/rejected this ad, if not for anything the trademark “excessive use of punctuation” ;)

  22. ComputerVideos

    Well it was really interesting I must say.

    Google is quite smart. They know what is going on :o )

    Cheers!

    http://ComputerVideos.110mb.com/

  23. ME@Zeta

    Maybe I am missing something but I run my programs based on ROI so a high CTR with low conversion is an irresponsible way to run your business. While I do agree it shows innovation I would not even consider such an effort in running a paid program.

  24. Блог Ð´Ð»Ñ Ñ‚ÐµÑ…, кто хочет отраÑтить живот » ASCI-Ñимволы и Google Adwords

    […] ВзÑто тут. […]

  25. the new shelton wet/dry

    […] Sixt, a major car rental company in Germany, makes different Google Adwords ads. […]

  26. middledigit.net | jonathan hopkins » Blog Archive » ASCII Art on Google Adwords

    […] Via here via here. […]

  27. Innovative marketing goes back to ASCII art | TechWag

    […] You can see the ad screen cap here and the actual video here just in case one link gets slammed this morning. […]

  28. abbottsys

    HOAX? I assume it must be, AdWords would reject these things instantly for “repetition” and “punctuation” and who knows what else.

  29. Emarketing Blog | Using ASCII Art on Google Adwords - Brilliantly Innovative!

    […] Source: Digg. […]

  30. Alex

    But it doesn’t work with adwords, moderators don’t approve it

  31. Dito

    real or fake, i got a kick out of the article, thanks

  32. optometrist

    Hi
    That’s nice…
    can someone help me with eyeglasses ASCII art?

  33. links for 2008-01-11 « Zero influence

    […] Using ASCII Art on Google Adwords - Brilliantly Innovative! Now that’s what I call Branded Content (tags: adsense advertising adwords ascii genius) […]

  34. ASCII Art In My Adwords Campaign | Sweet Rock Media

    […] After the story broke about the German car rental company adding clever ASCII Art to their AdWords campaign, I decided to give it a try, and I’m guessing thousands of others tried it out today as well. […]

  35. dominating_seo

    I am sure, this can happen. I have tried such thing but without a doubt they were disapproved

  36. Mike | AdWords Consultant

    Very original!

  37. bill

    interesting for branding, not roi.

  38. Will

    I saw this and tried it for our adwords, just for fun. It’s hard to get it to work, for the reasons above (”excessive punctuation”. I got a few up, but not a lot and they don’t look great because of having to try to get round google’s rules. also, with two lines, it’s pretty hard to draw a flower!

    (look for the arenaflowers ads on the right hand side).
    http://www.google.co.uk/search?num=100&adtest=on&hl=en&safe=off&q=send+roses&btnG=Search&meta=

    i definitely agree with the “you’ll get novelty (non converting)” clickers comment….I guess i’ll find out soon enough if any clicks convert. googles keyword insertion tool is a bit like that….lots more clicks but conversion rate drops…..d’oh!

  39. Will

    PS one of them is really bad (I did multiple) but I can’t pause it as google is undergoing maintenance. aaargh!
    :D

  40. Jenny

    Even if Google allowed it, it would totally get messed up when the ad is placed above organic or if the ad is placed on the 2nd page when users click on “more sponsored links”. Groovy idea though.

  41. SEM Pro

    This ads actually were never accepted by the editorial team as they do not comply TOS. These creatives were just shown by Jung van Matt(?) for award application.

    That it would lead to a high clickrate, sounds reasonable. Good for branding, indeed. Addionally, it raises the AdWords Qualityfactor, which is reduced simultaneously by not having the keyword in the descriptionline 1 or 2. Kthxbai

  42. SEM Pro

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  43. Agafix Blog » Blog Archive » Weekly Links: 2008.02

    […] Using ASCII Art on Google Adwords […]

  44. חדשות ועוד במחירון » ×רכיון » שימוש ב×ומנות ASCII בפרסומות Google Adwords

    […] הכריש הסב ×ת תשומת ליבי לפוסט מעניין, שעוסק בשימוש ב×ומנות ASCII ×‘×§×™×©×•×¨×™× ×”×ž×ž×•×ž× ×™× ×©×œ גוגל גרמניה. קישור לסרטון שמציג ×ת הפרסומות הללו. ×× ×™ ×ומר ×œ×›× ×”×ינטרנט ×”×–×” ×”×•× ×ž-ש-×”-ו. […]

  45. 24/7 - Der Wochenrückblick (KW 02/08) » Allgemein » sumaphil.de

    […] SIXT warb offenbar eine Zeitlang mit ASCII-Arts-Anzeigen bei AdWords: Einfach genial! Leider aber nicht mehr live […]

  46. Turner Prize for SERP art? • Tim Nash UK SEO Blog

    […] By: Tim Nash Inspired by the idea of ASCII art in Google Adwords I decided to have ago myself in the SERPs. Unfortunately I’m not much of an artist and with just 2 lines to work with your scope for a masterpiece is limited! Anything that makes your Search results stand out is a good thing but perhaps this is not the way to do it. Any budding artists willing to give it a go could this be the ultimate test of ASCII artists? […]

  47. Marian

    Hi all, after reading about this I created an ad like that for my site wgich is also auto related (www.boing.ro). You can see the print screen here http://www.boing.ro/Ascii.jpg or you can go to www.google.ro and search for “masini” . The ad set to be shown only for romanian language and for that particular search term. If you find it please do not click on it as it does not have a big budget allocated. Is made just for fun.

  48. Coolz0r - Marketing Thoughts » Creative With Adwords

    […] Thanks for the pointer, Paul. […]

  49. Google adsense : Learn, practice and share

    […] Using ASCII Art on Google Adwords - Brilliantly Innovative!We did start making big mistakes as we attempted to master other industries however, and after Google made some changes to the Adwords program that really … […]

  50. espresso interactif - Blogue de Yannick Manuri » Blog Archive » Comment se démarquer dans les résultats de Google?

    […] Par contre, petit bémol, Google ne permet pas plusieurs de ce genre de caractères dans ses annonces Adwords, alors, selon plusieurs (voir commentaires), le tout ne serait qu’un canular destiné à faire du chemin dans les médias. […]

  51. Google AdWords et art ASCII: canular ou pas? | La gazette du Hangar

    […] Demandons-nous, comme de nombreux commentateurs sur Mind Valley Labs si cette campagne a réellement eu lieu. Personne ne semble avoir réussi à voir ces annonces. […]

  52. jeanv

    Hi, that’s true we still do that, i have just made a test: http://www.google-live.fr/adwords/ameliorer-rapidement-son-ctr-avec-des-annonces-ascii/

  53. michael goldstein

    The ASCII must be a fake, because it would have been rejected by google.
    My name is Michael Goldstein, and I have been working on the same issue as this blog
    Check out my companies blog STUN MEDIA
    ( http://www.stunmedia.com/whois/michael-goldstein/ ).

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