Creating Successful Text Ads
It’s not easy fitting everything you want to say about your business in just a few words. Start by taking a moment to consider what you want to do with your ad. Then use the six guidelines in this article to create an ad that’s accurate, to-the-point, and engaging – and hopefully brings you lots of clicks!
Highlight what makes your business, product, or offer unique
Free shipping? Large selection? Tell people! Highlight features or areas that make your business stand out from the competition.
Include prices, promotions, and exclusives
If you have something special to offer, make sure your customers see it. People are usually searching to make a decision about something. Give them what they need to help make their decision.
Tell your customers what they can do
Are you selling? Tell them what they can buy. Are you offering? Tell them what they’ll receive. Strong verbs like Purchase, Call today, Order, Browse, Sign up, or Get a quote tell your customers what they can expect to do when they arrive at your website.
Include at least one of your keywords in your ad text
This can catch the attention of the people who searched for the keyword, and show that your ad is related to what they want. Additionally, the keyword you use will appear in bold in your ad, just like it does in the search results, making it more obvious how relevant your ad is. Let’s say you include the keyword digital cameras in your ad’s headline, like “Buy Digital Cameras,” and a customer searches for digital cameras. Your ad’s headline will appear in bold, like “Buy Digital Cameras.” Your ad’s headline could also appear in bold if a customer searched for buy SLR cameras, like “Buy Digital Cameras,” since “buy” and “cameras” match words in the customer’s search term.
Match your ad to your landing page
Take a look at the page on your website that you’re linking to, which is called the landing page. Make sure the promotions or products in your ad are included in that page. If visitors don’t find what they expect to see when they reach your site, they might leave.
Appeal to customers viewing your ad on a mobile device
When customers are on-the-go, certain information might be more useful to them (like your store location or phone number) or a particular message might grab their attention. If you’re running an enhanced campaign, try using call extensions (also known as click-to-call) or location extensions to give customers the information they need to take action while they’re on the move. Also, consider creating additional ads tailored for mobile devices, like text that highlights mobile-specific specials or discounts or a mobile-optimized display URL.
Experiment
Create three to four ads per ad group, trying out different messages to see which performs the best with your customers. AdWords can automatically show the better-performing ads within an ad group more often. This removes the guesswork and lets you build on what you’ve learned from your experiments.
Example
Which ad would you click on if you’re searching for an 8 megapixel camera?
www.example.com
we sell the main brands
great prices here
www.example.com
10% off Digital Cameras,
Free Delivery, Buy Today!
Successful text ads tend to contain words that match a person’s search and tell them what they can expect when they click on the ad. Notice how the capital letters in the “8 Megapixel Cameras” ad make the words stand out.
The components of a text ad
All online ads are essentially clickable messages that connect customers with a website. Text ads, the simplest version of a clickable message, contain three components: a headline, display URL, and a description. Let’s look at the components of the sample ad below:
Headline
The first line of your ad is the one that customers are most likely to notice. If you really want your headline to stand out, consider including keywords. People are more likely to notice headlines that match what they’re searching for. In this sample ad, the keyword “advertise” should get the attention of people who are searching for ways to advertise online. AdWords can show up to 25 characters in your headline.
Display URL
Appearing in green, this line of your ad shows the address of the website that you’re promoting. AdWords lets you choose a brief but meaningful display URL to give people who see your ad a clear idea of where it’ll take them when they click on the link. Behind the scenes, you can also assign your text ads a different destination URL, which takes the person who clicks your ad to a precise location on the same website that’s relevant to the ad itself. People can only see the display URL in your ad and not the destination URL.
Long display URLs
AdWords can show up to 35 characters of your display URL due to limited space. For languages that use double-width characters, like Chinese (simplified or traditional), Japanese, or Korean, they can show up to 17 characters of your display URL. If your display URL is longer than the maximum character length, they’ll shorten your display URL when they show your ad.
Display URLs enhanced with website links
You might see that the Display URL of your text ad includes a set of links that show the locations of pages on your website. AdWords calls these links breadcrumbs – inspired by the trail of breadcrumbs Hansel left through the woods to find his way back home in the Grimm’s fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel.” These breadcrumb links help customers easily navigate to relevant sections of your website.
For some advertisers, AdWords will automatically add breadcrumbs to ads that appear at the top or bottom of Google search results, helping to make your ads more relevant to customers. Customers can click an individual breadcrumb link to quickly navigate to the page or section of your website that they find relevant.
Example
Let’s say a customer wants to buy a pair of sandals and she searches for “womens sandals”. AdWords might show her the following ad enhanced with breadcrumbs:
Deciding that she might want to see more than just sandals, she clicks the “Womens Shoes” breadcrumb link. She looks at the boots and sandals that you sell — and finds shoes that she loves! — so she decides to buy a pair of brown leather boots and hot pink sandals from your website.
Since AdWords use the breadcrumb annotations from the landing page of your ad to create the breadcrumb links, you’re in control of which breadcrumbs are shown with your ad or whether breadcrumbs are shown at all.
How to show breadcrumbs with your ads
You can edit your website’s code and add breadcrumb annotations to show your ad with breadcrumbs. Remember, you’re in control of the code that’s used on your website to create breadcrumbs. Learn more about how you can modify your website code to show breadcrumbs.
Understanding your costs
AdWords will charge you each time a customer clicks any link on your ad, regardless of whether the link clicked is the headline of your ad or a breadcrumb link. You can decide the maximum amount you’d like to pay for a click by setting a cost-per-click (CPC) bid. Keep in mind that the amount you’ll pay is the same for a click on the headline or a click on a breadcrumb link. The amount won’t be affected by whether the display URL of your ad does shows or doesn’t show with breadcrumb links.
View your performance data
You can use segments to see how your breadcrumbs are performing. To see the number of times someone clicked your breadcrumb links to visit your website, select the Ads tab and segment your data by “Click type”. Your performance data will be included in the “Breadcrumb” click type.
Description
The final lines of your text ad are where you describe the product or service you’re advertising. Space is limited, so choose your words carefully to highlight the most important details and benefits. AdWords can show up to 35 characters for each description line. Keep in mind text ads on the Google Display Network might look slightly different.
Using characters with your ads
You can write your ads in a number of supported languages. Most non-English characters, including tildes, umlauts, and cedillas, will appear correctly in your ads, including the display URL.
For languages that use double-width characters, like Chinese (simplified or traditional), Japanese, or Korean, your text ads will appear on Google search results the same way that they appear in your account. Keep in mind that your headline, description lines, and display URL should meet the character limits. AdWords recommends you preview your ads to make sure you’re satisfied with how they appear.