Guide to Effective Ad Copy for Google Adwords

The quality of your ad copy plays a pivotal role in the success of any paid search campaign. Google Adwords uses Quality Score and most other leading PPC platforms use similar algorithms which takes into account the CTR and relevance of your ad copies. A good ad copy increases relevance, increases CTR and lowers CPC - improving the overall performance of your PPC campaign.

To create effective ad copies it is not enough to have creative talents but there are certain other prerequisites too.

a)Account Structure for Focussed Ad Copies - The more relevant your ad copies would be in respect to the searched keyword, the better would be its quality. However, this is only possible when your Google Adwords account / PPC account is well structured and you have only highly relevant keywords in the same Ad Groups. If you have a diversified bunch of keywords in one Ad Group, your ads would probably be very relevant to few of them and irrelevant for others or it would probably be moderately relevant to all - it would definitely not allow you to have the optimum relevance in ad copy for all your keywords.

b)Know your Target Audience - Not just for writing ad copies, this is equally applicable when you are writing content for a website. You need to have a perfect understanding of your target audience and their language.For example, the English used by people in UK is very different from the way American's speak; while in US it is common to hear about a "custom made equipment" to a Britisher it is a "bespoke equipment". Use the language of your target audience in your ad copies, that will help them to relate to you and get more confidence.

In fact knowing your target audience is the key factor in writing an ad copy and it has got much more to do than what is explained in the above point.It is actually the target audience that determines how the ad should be written, what should be the content, what should be the intent , what should be the tone and other finer points.Here are some other factors that you should study in your target audience while writing your ad copy.

a)Try to understand the nature of your prospective customers and craft your ad copy to answer their concerns. A careful analysis of your industry would help you identify the common concerns among customers and you will notice that there are various types of customers.

For example;

* Price Conscious : Try ads with prices - they will click only if they like the price. Your CTR might be lower but conversion rate would be high.

* Quality Focussed : Mention standard, quality , guarantee etc in your ad. The customer gains assurance on quality

* Deal Seekers : Mention special offers. People love to purchase when you use words like Special Offer, Promotional Offer, Discounted Rate, Free etc

* Knowledgeable Buyer : He already knows about your product/service and is aware of your competitors as well. If you want to get him, show case your USP, tell him What's in it for him.

* Window Shoppers : These guys would visit a dozen website before they make a purchase. Give them comparison charts so that they can compare your product/service with your competitors right there on your website and make a decision.

b) Age group of your target audience can be a major factor too. While you need to be cheerful, funny and joyous while writing for kids, its important that your ads targeting C class executives have that absolute professionalism and sophistication.

Let's take a look at some of the features of an effective Ad Copy for Google Adwords..

a)Relevant Ad Copy - The more precise and relevant your ad copies are to the keywords searched for the better is the chance of click through. People are more likely to click on your ads when they see the searched keywords on the ad heading.

You can use Dynamic Keyword Insertion feature offered in Google Adwords to dynamically insert keywords in ad copies to make them match exactly to the searched query.

b)Clear Message - A clear message about the product/service that helps the buyer to understand what is on offer. This prevents irrelevant click through and saves your advertisement dollar and helps you get higher click through from genuine prospects resulting in higher ROI.

c)Call to Action - Include a call to action. They are mostly effective with impulsive buyer.

While these are some of the standard characteristic of good ad copy there are other factors that can actually make your ad a super hit.

d)Be creative - Think out of the box. There are a thousand ways to say the same thing. Try to create ads that your competitors would not even think of. One fantastic example of such an ad copy was done by Kalena Jordan - she had an ad that said

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Her CTR increased dramatically with the new ad.

While creating new and innovative ad copies for your Google Adwords or PPC campaign is definitely interesting, ads are never perfect and there is always scope of improvement. It is extremely important to measure ad performance. A/B testing is probably one of the easiest way to test your ad copies, particularly for beginners, however, for the more experienced professionals multivariate testing would probably yield better results.