When you write a Google Ad, you have only a few short sentences to attract the attention of customers and convince them to ignore all the other ads and take action on your ad. Wasting any of that small space available could cost you a sale. The following tips can help ensure that potential customers make their way to your business and don’t surf right by your ads.
Don’t advertise “shoes.” Advertise “top brand athletic shoes” or “low cost stilettoes.” Specificity helps customers who are interested in your product or service to find you. It also cuts down on the number of mistaken clicks from customers who click your link to check out what you’re offering, realize it isn’t anything they’re interested in, and zip away. Since each click costs you money, you want to be sure you’re attracting the attention of serious customers only.
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What do you have that your competitors don’t? Brainstorm with your marketing team to come up with ideas about what makes your business stand out. Then select a few words to brand your company. A great example of a three-word brand comes from Jimmy Johns Gourmet Sandwiches: “freaky fast delivery.” With a distinctive tag like that, they make sure they don’t blend in with all the other sandwich shops that deliver.
Pretend you are a potential customer and think about the words or phrases you would type into a search engine if you were looking for the products or services your business sells. You don’t have a lot of space in your ad, but you can still select two or three keywords or keyword phrases to include. If you’re selling industrial displays, for instance, you might want to use “industrial LCD monitors” or “industrial LCD displays.”
Now that you’ve got your customers hooked with specific information, clever branding, and well-chosen keywords, tell them exactly what you want them to do. “Visit our website for a free insurance quote.” “Buy handmade beaded jewelry.” “Choose from our vast selection of used computers.” Provide a link to a page where the client can actually buy your product. Clients who have to search your website to find what you’ve promised them may get frustrated and surf off to spend money with a competitor.
It’s difficult enough to gain the confidence of strangers without throwing a bunch of typos and weird formatting into the mix. Take some time to proofread and make sure the words in your ad are spelled correctly and that the ad looks simple and inviting. After all, you want to stand out because you’re better than your competitors, not because of glaring errors in your Google Ad.
Michael is a Social Media consultant offering online branding to local business. He often split tests ads for his clients to get maximum ROI.
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The way you have explained how to write a successful ad makes me think that actually it may not be that complicated to make conversions with Adwords. I do not think that I have applied these tips to their fullest when I was trying to advertise on Adwords.
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I think that a Google ad should have a striking and clear message. The act or the result it expects from the consumer should be direct-to-the-point. The link between the message and the desired outcome should be evident.
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Such is the case with all ads. Being specific is incredibly important as you say, the more straightforward you are the more people will be attracted to your business/ad. Having a unique, colorful ad is great too and makes it stand out from the crowd. The use of correct tags is often overlooked by some people but is arguably the most important part of an ad. Correct, straightforward tags – more traffic.
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I am already a Google Adsense user, so Google sends me gift cards for their Adwords program. I took advantage of the credit for the first time this month, and I have been disappointed that my ads haven’t been bringing much traffic to my blog. I’m going to try and integrate the tips you’ve outlined in this article. You’ve done a great job at breaking it down for me, and now I know how to target my ads to attract the right audience. Thanks!
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Hope these tips help bring more traffic to your blog. Also take a look at this post: “5 SEO Blogging Tips” 🙂 Happy blogging!
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Wow, great article. It’s really helpful and these are some smart tips and tricks. If more advertisers did this they would definitely see a better turnout.
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Many of the ideas that you point out in this article, I already had them in mind, but one of them that was particularly interesting to me: “End with a Call to Action”. I never thought of it that way, and according to what you claim is an important point to consider. I also believe that the simplicity in writing is an essential point: use of a discreet language, simple, and relatively formal. If the possibility of exploiting the creative aspects of the ad, we have to take that option, but that doesn’t happen in all cases. Very good article.
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Yes, your really selling an idea, it’s better to know the language that your customers speak and speaking it fluently. Your message should be a no brainer for smart people.
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I’ve read that you should use buyer specific keyword phrases to get more specifically targeted clicks, is that correct? Also, I imagine you want to start out with with a small campaign, track your results and then ramp up the profitable ones. Now when you’re using adwords, can you track everything through google analytics, or do you need some type of service or software? I’m familiar with hypertracker but have never used it. Any recommendations on tracking your campaigns?
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It’s best to use keywords directly related to your business. So if that is what you meant by “buyer specific” then yes. Google Analytics is a great tool. We also have an in-house lead tracking and measurement tool called AdLuge. Check it out: http://www.adluge.com/
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Nice, simple, informative post michael. It’s important that we persuade only the right people to click on our ads so the chnaces for a sale/service is high and there by we limit the clicks and saving money as well.
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Some other pointers. Capitalizing the first letter of every word in your ad, it will make it stand out more – it’s subtle but I’ve seen click through rates on ads improve from this, and it’s generally permissible by most ad networks’ guidelines. Try and get the keywords from your ad groups into the copy as much as possible – because they are auto bolded when your ad is displayed, drawing more attention to it’s relevance to their search query. And lastly, in addition to a call to action, asking a question in your ad copy is a good way to spark user engagement.
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Great article, advice on a topic you don’t see too often unfortunately, despite how vital Google Ads really can be. Thanks so much for this one.