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PPC for Beginners: How to Write Effective Google AdWords Text Ad

You don’t have to be super-creative for writing an eye-catching adcopy. All you need to do is to follow certain approach. There are many poignant parts in pay per click advertising but adcopy is one of the most important part through which you make that first impression on your potential customers.

25 characters Headline…35 characters of both Description 1 and 2 … 35 characters Display URL…These few characters can bring a whole lot of difference to your campaign if used wisely.


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how to write adcopy infographics

 

Competitive Research

Before you jump into the well of ad creation there are certain preparations which should be done. Knowing your clients business is equally important as that of your competitor. Best way to know your competitors is through Google Ad preview tool. Pick your top keywords and see whose ads are showing at top positions. Google Ads Auction insight tool is again another good tool that helps in finding your competitors. In addition to this there are various other tools in the market which helps you know who is on top of you and where are you lagging behind.

 

What is the user’s objective?

This is what you need to think when you start writing an adcopy. No one is going to click any ad just because it’s awesome. They click it only if your ads have the answer to their query. So always try to keep yourself in place of a user when you start writing your ads.

 

Write keyword specific Adcopies

It has been statistically proven that the visitors are most likely to click your ad, if the adcopies includes keywords that they are searching for.
For example, taking the keyword “PPC Reseller” -

PPC Reseller India
Convert your clicks to leads.
Free Audit. Call Us Today!
www.outsourcesem.com/OutsourceSEM
www.outsourcesem.com/outsource-sem-services.html

Based on the search query, you can even do Dynamic keyword insertion in your adcopy. With dynamic keyword insertion you can provide users with more relevant ad text rather than using generic ad for multiple keywords. Also Google bolds dynamic inserted terms which makes your ad stand out of the competition.

For eg- if we have an adgroup for “shoes” which includes keywords like –
Sports shoes
Leather shoe
Closed toe shoe etc.

We can write our ad as given below –

Headline – Great Prices on {Keyword: Shoes}
Description 1 – Looking For New Shoes?
Description 2 – Get 20% Off on Shoes. Buy Now!

The brackets are where the keywords will be displayed. So if someone searches for “leather shoes” Headline will read as “Great Prices on leather shoes”.

You can even control the capitalization as below –

 keyword = “leather shoes”
 Keyword = “Leather shoes”
 KeyWord = “Leather Shoes”
 KEYWORD = “LEATHER SHOES”

 

 

Call to Action (CTA)

The other parameter which incurs searchers to click your ad is “call to action”. It helps them understand what they should do next when they visit your page. Your CTA phrase/word should be action oriented. They should properly describe intended action as the outcome relating to your offer. For example –

Get Your Free Trial, Reserve Your Seat, Call Us Today etc…

Make the best use of headline and description line 1 – If your ad appears in one of the top positions, it can be displayed with headline that includes Description 1. So try to highlight your product features that makes you unique in description 1.

Highlight why you are unique (USP) - Free Audit, Free shipping etc. – Showcase you products and services which are different and unique from others. You can use ad extensions as well for this. Ad extensions helps to provide information of coupons, special offers, location and even phone numbers.

Display URL – It is again one of the main factors which affects the quality score. You can use keyword in your display URL which not only gives relevancy to the visitors but also let them know where they are going to visit on your site.

For eg -
Server Rentals
Servers @RentComputers, Rent at
Unbeatable Price. Call Us Now!
www.rentcomputers.com/Server_Rent

 

Ad customizers

Ad customizers helps us to customize ads with keywords, across a campaign or adgroup, to promote recurring events, sales or if you want to target people by location or if you want a countdown to a one – time event.

For eg – for leather shoe with below details

Targeted keyword – Leather shoes, Model (text) – Casual Leather, Type(text) – closed toe, start price (price) - $50, Sales_end (date) – 2016/05/15 20:00:00

Buy {=Shoe. Model} Shoe
www.example.com
Get Top Branded {=Shoe. Type} Shoe.
{=Shoe.Start_price} - Sale ends in {=COUNTDOWN (Shoe.Sale_ends)}.

So now when someone searches for buy leather shoes on 10th May 2016, ad customizers can update the ad according to the leather shoe keyword and the ad will appear to the customer as -

Buy Casual Leather shoe
Get Top Branded Closed Toe Shoe.
$50- Sale ends in 5 days.

This will be further elaborated in another article specifically pertaining to ad customizers.

 

Landing page

Let’s say you are looking for PPC outsourcing agencies and you entered keyword “PPC Outsourcing agencies India”. Then you clicked one of the ads shown to you which takes you to the page which speaks about Outsourcing agencies in Philippines. ...Or let’s say the ad which you clicked took you to the page which talks about the outsourcing agencies in India but the page is not that attractive and you didn’t get any relevant information form the page. What will you do? Leave the page? ...... Yea ….. You will try looking for other sites. Attractive landing page not only gives a great user experience, but also improves the quality score which in turn leads to clicks at low cost.

 

Mobile Ads

Last year, it was confirmed by Google that most of the searches are done on mobile phones rather than on desktop. The percentage of mobile searches will continue to grow in the comings years as well. So it’s equally important to focus on your mobile ads and mobile landing pages.

Mobile text ads look same as desktop text ads. The only difference is, we can view fewer ads in mobile than in desktop. Character count for headline and description remains the same for both desktop and mobile. Though Google Ads will increase character count of headlines and descriptions for mobile ads later this year.

The headline will increase from one 25 character headline to two 30 character headlines so that consumers get better understanding of the product before clicking the ad. Also both descriptions will be combined into one 80 character description.

Besides this Google Ads is doing lots more for advertiser’s convenience. Currently, if we enter display URL manually and it does not match with Final URL, our ads get disapproved. Under this change, the domain will automatically get extracted from the Final URL.

Best practices for your mobile ads –

• Mobile Landing pages – Your mobile landing page should have good load speed. There are various tools available like – Google Page Speed Insights which helps you analyze how well is your mobile site. Also it’s very difficult to read huge content on the website. So try to keep short and concise. Also the buttons on the website should be large enough that visitors don’t have difficulty clicking it.

• Let people know that you have a mobile friendly landing Page– you can do this by adding “mobile” in your display URL – “www.abc.com/mobile”.

• Ad extensions – Use all possible ad extensions in your ads. It not only increases your CTR but also improves the quality score of your website.
For example - If you are running a campaign for your restaurant that delivers burger to the people of Mumbai. Suppose someone searches for burgers and your ad is triggered, then the visitor can directly click on the call button triggered with your ad.
On other hand if you want more phone calls to your burger shop you could create a call only campaign. Your ads will be appear only on mobiles that can make phone call.
Using location extension and again help your visitors know where are you currently located.

This will be further elaborated in another article specifically pertaining to ad extensions.

Related Topic:
Ultimate Guide to Expanded Text Ads

Author

Annu Singh

Annu is B.E Information Science and is currently a search specialist at Megistron Media. She specializes in campaign audits & management, execution and creating solutions for global clients.