Ad Copy

Digital Marketing - Study Notes:

What is ad copy?

It’s now time to turn our attention to the content of your advert, or the ad copy itself. This is what will appear when someone searches, so you need to get your ad copy on point if your PPC campaign is going to be effective.

Several main components make up a PPC advert, and you need to be familiar with each of them. They consist of clickable headlines, descriptions, URL paths, and landing pages, all of which can be enhanced with Ad Extensions. We’ll look at these in little bit more detail a while later.

Responsive ads

Google's main search ad format is called responsive ads. These are sometimes known as versatile search ads too. With responsive ads, Google encourages advertisers to write several headlines and descriptions which Google will rotate over time to find the best combination of headlines and descriptions for different searches. This allows you to test messaging and use Google’s machine learning capabilities to show the right text combination at the right time to deliver on your objectives.

Best practices

Here are some best practices for developing ad copy.

Organize Ad Groups thematically

As we’ve said before, ads are linked to Ad Groups, which means that several keywords can trigger the same ad. This is why it’s really important to ensure your Ad Groups are organized thematically. A single ad might have to service many different keywords in an Ad Group so the closer the keywords in that Ad Group relate to each other the more likely the ad will suit any of the keywords on the list.

Write good ad copy

Well-written ad copy will improve the searcher experience with your brand, drive more clicks, and can increase conversions by directing searchers with a strong CTA, or call to action: for example, “sale ends Sunday, buy now!” Ad copy can also be rendered in different ways on mobile and desktop, so that's something to consider when you're creating your advert.

Consider character limits

As you’d expect, there are also character limits to take into account and you need to make sure you’re making the most of the valuable, on-screen space available. These character limits change from time to time so it’s important to familiarize yourself with the allowable limits for priority ad sections such as headlines, descriptions, or URL paths. If you exceed the character limit in any of these sections, you won’t be able to save your ad.

Insert Ad Group theme

A best practice when creating your ad copy is to insert your Ad Group theme into your Path 1 or Path 2 of your URL’s, just to make your ad appear more relevant to the searcher.

Just to note, regardless of your ad format, when the ad is shown on a search engine, you can say your ad has been ‘served’.

Driving clicks

So, what can we do, as digital marketers, to ensure our ads are driving clicks from searchers?

Consider searcher intent

First, you need to consider the need state of the searcher, and how this can be addressed by your product. What are they searching for when they type a query into Google? What need can you help them to fulfill? And crucially, based on their need, what do they want to know about your product that will make it appear more appealing than your competitors? This will be the basis of good ad copy.

Include keywords

You should also try to include the right keyword in the ad copy to increase perceived relevance for the searcher. This will in turn help drive higher clickthrough rates. You’ll need to think about any offers that might encourage the searcher to click through on your ad, and it’s always good to include a call to action that directs them to what they should do after they click on the ad. CTAs should reflect your desired business objectives like Shop Now, Call Today or Download eBook etc.

Test effectiveness

As you can see, ad copy is crucial to the success of your PPC activity, so it’s worth spending the time to test different ad messaging in your responsive ads to allow Google to try to find the ideal combination of headlines and descriptions to match your objectives.

In summary, you need to make sure your ad copy is relevant, contains keywords, and uses the language of the consumer.

Elements of effective ad copy

What are the elements of effective ad copy?

Relevant

Always ask yourself: is this ad relevant to the search keyword? If someone searches for flights to New York, and they get served an ad saying, “Cheap flights to Paris”, that’s not relevant. The ad isn’t relevant to the keyword list in your campaign, so, to resolve this, you might need to reorganize your Ad Groups and update the ad text associated with that Ad Group. Furthermore, if the correct, or relevant keyword searches are contained within your ad, within Google or Bing it will appear as bold text within the ad itself, and searchers are more likely to click on it. Moreover, Google gives you a score of Ad Strength from Poor to Excellent, based on how closely your responsive ads fits with the various keywords in your ad group or keyword list.

Attractive

Second, your ad copy needs to be attractive to the searcher and include things like an exclusive offer or unique selling point for your product. Something to get them excited and compel them to clickthrough to your website.

Directional

And finally, it needs to be directional. Your ad copy must include a call to action to guide the consumer to complete a specific task, whether that’s making a purchase, downloading a brochure, or signing up to your newsletter.

Once you’ve included all three elements, you’re well on the way to creating a successful PPC ad.