PPC, or pay-per-click advertising, is a complex digital marketing strategy that is composed of many working parts. A lot of the parts are very technical and require extensive knowledge and expertise. Those generally fall on the back end of PPC, and many people who are working with PPC ads can forget about the ad itself. The biggest part of what your audience is going to see and connect with is the ad copy, and you need to make sure you are putting enough time and effort into making your copy the best it can be.
With that being said, writing copy for PPC ads can be very hard, especially if you don’t consider yourself to be a quality writer. It isn’t going to matter how great your landing pages are or how effective your targeting is if your ad text can’t capture attention. The good news is that you don’t have to be a seasoned copywriter to come up with killer text. You just need to understand your business and then have a few good tricks up your sleeve.
Elements of the Ad
Within the PPC ad, there are several different elements that need copy to attract your audience.
Headline – The headline of your ad is going to be the first thing that people see in your ad. You want to make sure that you coordinate the text within the headline with the keywords in your landing page and ad group. This will help make sure you reach the correct audience, and can help improve your Quality Score. However, keep in mind that you are limited to 25 characters, so you have to be precise.
Description 1 – The first description line that you have is where you need to promote your offerings. Tell the audience all about what it is that you are advertising. You have 35 characters you make them realize they need this product/service.
Description 2 – The second description line is also limited to 35 characters, but this is where you need to build on your first line of description. In the first line, you describe the product/service. In the second line, you add any other information that you think will draw the audience in. This is where you should include your best call to action.
Display URL– The display URL is the URL that will be displayed in the ad, but it is not necessarily the URL that they will be taken to when clicking on the ad.
Actual URL – The actual URL is the URL that visitors will be taken to when they click on your ad. This is not visible to the user and you have no character limit.
Tips for Writing PPC Ad Copy
Know Your Company
When it comes to writing killer PPC ad copy, the first thing that really comes into play is how well you know your company and how you can sell it. Consider your company and what you have to offer your audience – what makes you really stand out from everyone else. Your ad copy is the time to put yourself on the market and sell your company. Let the audience know why you are the best at what you do. If you are the only retail store carries certain brands or products, let them know. If your products are made in the USA, add that to your ad copy. Make sure your stand out elements are represented.
The more that you understand your company and the DNA of it, the more you will resonate with the audience. Sit down and really think about what it is you want to communicate before writing your text.
Know Your Competitors
After you understand your own company, it’s time to sit down and learn all you can about your competitors. Google your top 5 or 6 keywords and see what comes up. The answer might be companies that you have never considered to be your competition. Keep an open mind and look at the results and their ad copy.
Take note of what these companies are doing in their ads. You can use tools like SEMRush to see what your competitors are doing. These results are based on impressions and are very visible to your target audience, which means these are the ads that you have to compete with. Write down what you like from their ads, what you don’t and how you can improve upon them.
Create a Killer CTA
One of the top things that your ad has to have is a quality, top of the line call to action, or CTA. There are several things that you can add to your CTA to make it really stand out to your target audience.
The first thing that you want to include in your CTA is a strong verb to start it off. A lot of companies will use the old “buy now” CTA. But you don’t want to be like everyone else, you want to be creative and stand out. Use words like, Shop, Order, Subscribe, Find out how, etc.
You also want to make sure your CTA incite feelings with your audience. Whether we want to admit it or not, humans are emotional beings and we like to be referred to. If you can bring the audience into your copy, you will have a greater response. For example, “Buy your dream car today!” or “Order now and save 40 percent.” These play on emotions of missing out and makes your audience act now.
Also in your CTA, you want to tell your audience why they need to act. You have to feed them your unique selling point, or what makes your deal the very best that they cannot pass up on. This is a huge piece of text that cannot be ignored. With so many other companies vying for their attention, you have to create value in their eyes. One of our examples at Visiture — “Call now for a free audit.” This gives them an action — call now, while also telling them our value — a free audit.
Turn on Ad Extensions
One final thing that you can do to make sure your ads are top of the line is to make sure you turn on the ad extensions. Ad extensions are a great way to give your audience more information while also taking up more real estate in the SERPs. They have also been shown to increase CTR by 30 percent. The best ad extensions to enable are call extensions and location extensions, especially when you are doing local PPC. These give your audience your location and phone number and if they are on mobile, give them the ability to get directions or call you directly.
Conclusion
Writing PPC ad text and creating the best PPC ads can be a daunting task if you go into it blindly. PPC can help your business reach your most valuable customers through targeting and can connect with them on new levels. By creating a good first impression through your ads, you are more likely to convert them to customers. Hopefully, these tips will help elevate your PPC ad copy to the killer level.
Writing Photo via Shutterstock
This article, “How to Create Killer PPC Ad Copy” was first published on Small Business Trends