Writing ads for Adwords can be extremely frustrating… Trying to list all of your benefits in such a small space, 30 characters per headline limitation, and then there is the Ads Editorials Standards preventing you from using specific works (like “click”) or capitalization… So what do you do?
Understanding the Buyer Cycle
In order to write effective ads, you need to have some understanding of the buyer cycle and search intent.
Is the searcher at the beginning of a purchase and in “research mode” looking online for more information or are they ready to wipe out a credit card and buy?
You want to know exactly where they are and what they need at that point of the buying cycle. Once you know this, you’re going to write your ad copy accordingly.
Targeting the prospect in the right (or wrong) part of the cycle can make a huge impact on your conversions and clickthrough rate.
5 Stages of the Customer Buying Cycle
- Awareness : Customer identification of a need and the realization that your online business can potentially fulfill it.
- Consideration : Customer evaluation of how your offering meets this need, including the evaluation of offerings from other ecommerce sites.
- Interest: Customer evaluation of which specific model or solution would best resolve their issue/problem.
- Preference : A customer’s logical and emotional inclination towards one solution or another, ultimately leading to a purchasing decision.
- Purchase : The action of ordering and buying from your ecommerce site.
The Buyer Cycle is a very important concept to to grasp before you ever start writing your first ad… By understanding what stage (buying cycle) your customer is in when they’re searching will help you write the ad.
Use keywords to distinguish and separate what you want people to do… If they’re in the “purchase stage” then obviously your calls-to-action should be to drive them into a “buy now” type of page.
If they’re still in the information stage, or they’re just trying to research and learn more, then you’re going to use calls-to-action that match those motivations.
While your’re planning your campaign, sort your keywords by buying stage. This will allow you to target prospects in different phases of the cycle.
Copy Writing Tips
Here are some proven tactics, tips, and ad copy examples I’ve collected that you can use to write amazing Google ads… Ads that will bring you higher click-through rates, higher Quality Scores and higher conversion rates.
Prequalify Traffic
Relevance
Call-to-Action
Use Psychology
Answer the Searcher’s Objective
Use Countdown Timers
Write To Your Audience
Geographically Specific
Include Numbers
Test, Test, Test
Ad Check List
Prequalify Traffic
You want to use the text in your ad to prequalify your traffic and weed out people that they don’t want.
You don’t want anybody and everybody clicking on your ads…
You only want to attract the right person to your ads!
This one’s especially useful for premium offers. If you have a premium product with a higher sticker price, include your price in your ad copy. This will help you pre-qualify your visitors and not shock them with the sticker price on the actual landing page.
Including expensive dollar amounts upfront in your ad copy will cut through the non-serious leads and prospects and attract visitors willing to pay the premium price.
Relevance
- Keep your ad copy relevant to the keywords in the ad group.
- Include the keyword(s) in your ad headline, body copy, and display URL.
- Make sure you are sending the prospects the right landing page on your website.
Including your keywords in your ad copy (and landing page) is very important – not only will you keep a healthy Quality Score but you’re also keeping your ad relevant to the keywords in your ad group.
Relevancy is the reason to keep your keywords in tight ad groups. It would be very difficult to include the keyword in every at headline if you’ve got a whole bunch of different keywords in the same ad group.
Call-to-Action
Wordstream had a recent post were they analyzed 612 of the best Google ads. According to their data, in 335 high-performing non-branded text ads, they determined that the words appearing most often were (and in this order):
- Your
- Free
- Now
- Get
- Online
- Our
- Save
- Best
- Shipping
- You
Do you see some modifiers that could help you with conversion? Notice how most of these words are “action” words.
Using actionable and specific CTA in your ad copy, so your visitors are explicitly aware about what will happen once they click on your ad.
Here are some examples of CTAs where the ad copy is keyword-rich, and provides value and a sense of urgency:
As a rule, you should use CTAs that will lead to a sale… BTW, “Learn More” is not a purchase term.
If your interested in learning more about using a call-to-action in your ad copy, I recommend to read through this article by Stephen Kapusta, Call-to-Action Cheat Sheet For Writing Effective PPC Ad Copy. Using proper call-to-action within your ad copy is critical to optimizing ad performance.
Test Psychological Approaches
The messaging used in ad copy can be a critical selling point, but it doesn’t need to be boring. If anything, SERPs are getting overcrowded with the same type of bland messaging for ad slots. This is an opportunity for your ad to shine.
It’s important to test the different psychological approaches to ad copy to know which performs best with your target audience. Here’s a quick rundown of the major types of ad copy approaches:
- Features: highlighting the physical or intangible aspects of the product/service. (Memory foam)
- Benefits: calling out the positive outcomes the visitor will have from the product/service. (More restful sleep)
- Problem: focus on the actual issue at hand to relate to the problem the visitor is trying to solve. (Tired of Wasting Time?)
- Solution: focus on the solution to the problem the visitor is facing. (Save Time)
- Testimonials: using actual feedback/testimonials to leverage social proof. (“This product has changed my life.”)
- Reviews: third-party reviews of the product/service, not from customers.
- Top of the Class: calling out any awards, ratings, etc. to show you’re the best. (Best in category award, 2018)
- Prequalifying: weeding out people who might not be a good fit for your service before they click. (“Luxury Tours,” attempting to weed out bargain travelers)
Once you’ve tested what works best, mirror that on the landing page to create a cohesive feel from start to finish. Choose images and calls to action that mirror those approaches where possible.
The use of NLP and psychological triggers in selling has been going on for decades. This article by Shopify, 7 Psychological Triggers that Win Sales and Influence Customers, touches on some of the groundbreaking work of Robert Cialdini. His books, Influence published in 1984 and Pre-Suasion published in 2016, belong in every marketers collection.
Answer the Searcher’s Objective
Advertisers often lose sight of what their customers are truly looking for. I call this “The End Goal:” what people ultimately want to accomplish with the help of your product or service.
Example 1
Let’s say you sell acne products and your visitors search for keywords like, “Help get rid of acne.” You want to know how to write a Google ad based on that search term.
Your headline shouldn’t promote a “LaserAway Spring Sale” – the prospect is asking for a treatment – not removal.
Instead, you should speak to their End Goal – what they’re looking to achieve – with a headline similar to this:
Kill Acne Once & For All
Don’t spend money on ads that are targeted to the wrong audience – give visitors that end solution they’re looking for.
Example 2
What if you’re a car buyer who purchases cars from the general public? What should your Google ad copy look like?
Interested prospects might search for something like this:
lasvegascashforcars.com tells the searcher they buy cars in any condition – which mirrors the prospect’s end goal.
To make it easy for people to convert and remove ambiguity, all these ads should focus on telling prospects what they want to hear: “We’ll Buy Your Car Today.”
Why? Because the goal of the searcher is to have someone buy their car. How they go about selling it isn’t as important as actually getting it sold.
With a headline like “List & Sell A Car Online Today,” the searcher might wonder if they have to list their car themselves on an AutoTrader-like platform and field calls from a ton of tire-kickers who aren’t really serious about buying a car. Or even worse, will they get a call back from seven interested companies who will spam them until they die?
I imagine testing “We Buy Cars Any Condition” versus “Your Car Today” would see a big difference in conversions.
According to Johnathan Dane, who has run this comparison specifically for a car buyer, tested “Need To Sell Your Car?” (control) versus “We’ll Buy Your Car Today” (variation). The headline tweak resulted in a 30% increase in conversions.
Use Countdown Timers to Trigger Loss Aversion
Did you know that people are more readily motivated by the idea of losing out than the idea of gaining something?
This commonly known psychological force is called loss aversion and it can be a powerful way of boosting your Google Ads click-through and conversion rates.
Luckily, injecting a little FOMO into your ads isn’t very hard.
Google has recently added a simple countdown timer you can set within your text ads. In order to activate this feature, you snippet of code inside your headline or description:
{=
This popup will appear:
Select “Countdown” from the list…
This is what the countdown dashboard looks like.
After you set the end date, your ad will include a countdown in real time. Visitors seeing your ads will be motivated by their fear of loss, giving you the edge over your competitors who aren’t using this tactic.
Example
Ad agency Merkle | IMPAQT did this for some of their clients pre-Black Friday to have their Google text ads countdown to when the actual sale started. Here’s what they found:
We used the countdown feature to countdown the days until Thanksgiving and holiday deals began. We discovered the click and impression assisted conversions for this ad copy performed at a significantly higher rate than other copy. We also saw higher conversions associated with this copy on Thanksgiving and for about a week after as a result.
They’re not the only ones to have seen success with this new feature – Clarks America saw a 32% increase in CTR and a 3% increase on conversion rates from using the countdown timers.
Write To Your Audience
When it comes to writing ads, do you sometimes fall into the trap of being a little egocentric? Do you use words like “we,” “us,” “me,” “myself” and “I”?
Words like that fail to focus on the customer’s needs and can hurt your chances of getting a click – not to mention they’ve been shown to hurt conversions on landing pages too.
When it comes to writing copy that resonates with your audience, I couldn’t agree more with this nugget from John Kuraoka:
The second-best word is “you.” The best word is the customer’s name.
Since we’re still in the stone age of advertising and can’t add the visitor’s first name to our Google ads yet, we’ll have to settle for second best…. Craft your ads using power words like “you” to enhance ad performance? Take these ads for example:
Which ad stands out and gets you most excited to click?
Find opportunities where you can include the word “you” in your headline or first description line. And as always, lead with benefits.
Be Geographically Specific
You want to welcome your potential customers and show them that help is right around the corner.
Break your campaign into specific geographic areas and have your ad copy and call extensions specific to that geographic area as well.
Which ad would you click if you were looking for a plastic surgeon in Las Vegas?
Adding your target city’s name into your advertising is a good way to target prospects in that city.
If you’re writing ads for service providers, try including the city name in headline to draw extra attention to your ad. I recommend always adding the city name along with the primary keyword in the headline for service ads.
This obviously doesn’t apply for ecommerce or online businesses but it does work really well if you service anyone in a in a local brick and mortar.
Include Numbers in Your Copy
Writing your headlines with stats and numbers, like live inventory data or pricing, can help entice your visitors to your offer.
By including pricing, you get straight to the point and so do your visitors. They should already have a decent idea of what they’re willing to pay for something, so including an exact number can help them decide right there on the spot.
According to The Negotiation Experts’ Roger Dawson:
People believe exact numbers more so than they believe rounded numbers. The Ivory Soap people learned this out decades ago when they started claiming ‘Ivory Soap is 99.44% pure.’ Obviously we wouldn’t challenge them if they told us that Ivory Soap was 100% pure; but the precise figure is subliminally more plausible.
Plus, if you actually score an ad click, it’ll likely be from a qualified visitor who thinks your price point is agreeable.
Here’s an example where the advertisers have included number. Which ad would you choose?
By including the ad copy with “75k Emails For Only $25/Month” apptivo.com is marketing aggressively on price.
Here are some results that popped up when I searched “car rental”:
Looks like the car rental industry has also caught on to the price inclusion trend.
Here’s an example of ad copy that includes both the price and bundle quantity:
The ctshirts.com ad let’s you know how many shirts you can get for $99.
The itailor.com ad, not only includes the $39.95 price, you also know the quality of the stitching – super specific!
Always Be Testing
Split testing (or A/B testing) is a fantastic method to determine your best ads. And, consistently testing multiple ad variants will dramatically add to conversions and profits. Luckily, Adwords has a built-in A/B testing feature so you don’t need to figure anything out.
You’re going to test one or more of the following four things:
- The headline – the firstline and the second line
- The display URL
- The description
- The keywords the ad displays for
You’ll have better results if you follow these simple guidelines:
- Test your ad variations simultaneously to minimize time-based factors that might skew your results
- Only test one thing at a time so you can pinpoint what is affecting the success of your ads
- Test early and test often
- Pay attention to the hard data you collect, rather than your “gut instinct”
- Make sure you let your tests run for long enough to collect enough results to get accurate results. You need at least a few thousand impressions in order to get any kind of accurate data. Remember, with PPC, you’re only paying when people click, not for impressions
The one thing that you don’t want to change when you’re split-testing ad variations is the landing page.
Track and Analyze Your Results
You’ll want to track two primary things: how many click-throughs you get, and how many conversions those lead to. The goal here is to maximize not only the click-throughs, but also the conversions. High numbers in each are obviously going to give you the best ROI.
Like testing web copy, you’ll want to let your test run for at least a few days, and upward of a couple of weeks, depending on how much traffic you get.
Make sure you monitor where you ad appears during that time, too. If you’ve bid too low, you may find that your ad is showing up too low in results to be effective. It can also skew results if your ad position shifts too much during the test.
Determining a Winner
One important thing to keep in mind – are you getting statistically significant results?
Example
You have two ads running against one another and one has a click-through rate of 10%, another one of 5%.
You might think that 10% is better (and that might be try), but you need to be sure you’re getting enough results to make a fair comparison… And there is a handy tool from Neil Patel to help you.
Go to https://neilpatel.com/ab-testing-calculator/, enter the number of clicks (visits) from your first ad and the number of clicks (visits) of your second ad in the first box. Let’s say, #1 is 1,500 and #2 is 1,800. Next you will enter the number of conversions for each ad. Let’s say #1 is 650 and #2 is 700.
On the surface, it seems like ad #2 was more successful with 700 conversions compared to #1 with 650. However, the calculator is 100% confident that ad #1 is 12% better than ad #2. 43% versus 39% might not seem like a lot, but a 12% difference is a huge number.
Depending on your traffic, you may need to run the test for longer periods until you get enough clicks to get a statistically significant result.
Google Ad Checklist
Here’s a handy checklist that Google shared for writing successful text ads and common mistakes to avoid.
They suggest to effectively reach potential customers, your text ads should be specific, relevant, attractive, and empowering:
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Highlight what makes you unique Free shipping? Dazzling variety? Tell people! Showcase the products, services, or offers that make you competitive. |
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Include prices, promotions, and exclusives People often use Google search to make a decision about something. Give them what they need to decide. If you have a limited-time discount or stock an exclusive product, say so. |
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Empower customers to take action Are you selling something? Tell people what they can buy. Are you offering a service? Tell people how to contact you. Calls to action like purchase, call today, order, browse, sign up, or get a quote make clear what the next steps are. |
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Include at least one of your keywords Keywords in your ad text show your ad’s relevance to what people want. For example, if you’ve included digital cameras as a keyword, your ad headline could be “Buy Digital Cameras.” |
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Match your ad to your landing page Have a look at the page that you’re linking to from your ad (the landing page), and make sure that the promotions or products in your ad are included there. People might leave your website if they don’t find what they expect. |
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Appeal to customers on mobile People seeing your ads on mobile are more likely to want to know where you are, or to call you. Show your location and phone number with location extensions and call extensions. Also, consider creating ads devoted to people on mobile devices, using the mobile version of your website as a landing page, and offering specials suited to a mobile audience. Keep in mind, your text ads can appear differently on mobile. See how your site scores on mobile speed, and get quick fixes to improve it – Test your site. |
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Experiment Create three to four ads for each ad group, and use different messages for each to see which does the best. Google Ads rotates ads automatically to show the best-performing ads more often. Learn more about ad rotation. |
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Check for common ad text mistakes In order to make sure all ads are high quality, every ad must meet high professional and editorial standards. That means no extra spaces, sTrAnGe CAPITALIZATION, or unclear URLs, to name a few.The following information only applies to standard text ads. |
If you’re going to stay in the PPC Marketing field, I highly suggest you keep learning how to crafting a better ad. Ads will be the life blood of your trade and conversion is the goal. This article by Sean Martin, PPC Ad Copy Guide: How To Write Ad Copy That Converts + 31 Tips & Examples, offers plenty of great examples you can learn from.