Is your Pay Per Click performance underwhelming? Review your ads. Writing great copy can be the difference between a outstanding success and an advertising fail. If you think your adverts may be killing your account, try our professional PPC secrets for writing successful ads.
Make Every Character Count
Ad restrictions for Google and Bing force you to be brief. Both Google AdWords and Microsoft adCentre give you a total of 130 characters to sell your company – and you don’t get extra for your URL.
These tight limits mean you have to get straight to the point. What are you offering? Why do I need it? Why should I buy it from you and not a competitor? Anything that doesn’t aid understanding and sell your message has got to go.
Grammar Matters
Character limits don’t excuse sloppy copy. Your ad represents your company online, so txt speak, poor punctuation and bad grammar are out. Not only does it give the wrong impression, but also your adverts are likely to fall foul of adCenter’s editorial guidelines and the AdWords advertising policies.
Instead of resorting to bad grammar and questionable spellings, try to focus on just one key message to keep your ads short and effective.
Create Keyword-Rich Ad Copy
Whatever keywords you choose to bid on, make sure that you use them in your ads.
Using keywords in your copy keeps the ads relevant to the searcher – and it helps them to stand out. Both Google and Bing highlight the searcher’s keywords in bold in your adverts, making your PPC ads more eyecatching.
Sell Benefits and Features
Tell your customers why they should buy from you, and not just what to buy from you. Will you save customers money, entertain them or make their life better in some way? Talking about benefits appeals to the emotions – making for very engaging ads – but you need the features in your copy so customers can trust your claims.
Try making a list of all the features of your product or service then put a benefit next to it. Don’t worry about creating short statements yet, just focus on what you do and why that’s great for customers. For example:
“The camera has a 24mm wide angle lens so you can fit more family members into every photo.”
“Online appointment booking available to make life easier and more convenient for you.”
Not only does this make adverts more engaging, but also it helps you to distinguish yourself from your competitors.
Keep an Eye on your Competition
You don’t have to reinvent the wheel when you create ads. Look at what your competitors are saying and offering – then think how you can make that ad better. This will help you to get a feel for what works and what doesn’t, and to stay one step ahead of the PPC pack.
Test, Test and Test Again
The number 1 secret for improving your PPC adverts? Testing. You don’t know whether your potential customers want to “save money” or “save cash”. You can’t tell if they want “free delivery” or “fast delivery” – or both. You don’t know which message, benefit or feature they will respond to – so don’t make assumptions.
Both Google AdWords and Microsoft adCenter make it incredibly easy to pause, delete and create new ads all the time. This makes it’s easy to test a few options to find what works.
Keep it simple for yourself by only testing 2 or 3 variations at a time. And figure out exactly what’s working faster by only changing 1 thing in each ad, e.g. testing 2 ads with the same description and URL but a different headline.
There’s no real secret to writing successful PPC ads – it’s a simply skill that takes time to learn. Keep testing out new copy until you find the adverts that give you the results you need. Happy testing.
