As a PPC (former SEO), I know that testing is a huge part of my job. And I love it.

Let’s take this example: www.fly123.co.uk , providers of last minute flights

The competition is tough for this search queries “last minute flight” “last minute flights”.

Each month, around 74,000 searches for “last minute flights” ?? No way, my ads need to stand out from the crowd.

And that’s why I’ve decide to tweak my ads, particularly my headlines. Like everybody else on the page, my ads used to say “Cheap Last Minute Flights”. What about adding something different like an eye catching character?

Great idea. I searched for an emoticon website and found Emojipedia.

I’ve found the exact emoji for my ad. I was really sceptical on how Google would react with regards to pasting an image within the headline. In fact, I didn’t think it was possible.

So here it goes: ✈. That’s my CTR booster.

That’s what my ad looked before:

That’s what my ad looked after:

It might not seem like a big deal, but it is.

I monitored a 54% increase in click through rate (CTR) on desktop and mobile device. Huge. It’s obvious to say that the last minute bookings went through the roof as well.

The funny thing is that on mobile device, it looks even better:

It’s definitely not in the guidelines in Google but if it’s approved and the ad is eligible to run on the search network, then why not catching this opportunity.

I’ve got to say that not all work, I tried different emojis for various clients and they all got disapproved. For some unknown reasons, the airplane wasn’t disapproved. It’s great when nobody does it and you’re doing it but imagine if everybody were uploading emojis on ads, search results would look horrific.

Also, the good news is that if you want to apply the same cheeky technique on your website, you can fill the title tag or the meta-description with some emojis. Depending on your CMS, it might not work. For example, the WordPress plugin SEO Yoast seems to block emojis.

There are obviously more decent ways to boost your CTR, but this is worth a shot…