Tips To Write Effective PPC Text Ads

Creating high converting text ads for search engine marketing is no easy task, but there are certain key factors that can help you create ads that both grab the attention of the searcher and lead them along through the conversion process.

Below is a breakdown of the sections of a text ad and certain items that should be contained within each section.

Headline: The headline helps you catch the eye of the searcher and should immediately proclaim ‘Hey! I am relevant to what you are looking for!’ If you look at the ad below you can see the term ‘Contact Lenses’ (the search query entered) appears in the headline, letting the searcher know that the ad is offering what they are looking for.

If you have created very granular ad groups you can create text ads that utilize keywords or keyword phrases within the headline. I recommend staying away from DKI (Dynamic Keyword Insertion). This can lead to you ad using lowercase letters in the headline.

If you have enough remaining characters you can highlight other specifics about your product or service. For example high lighting things like ‘99% Approval Rate’ or ‘15% Off’ can help increase your CTR and set you apart from your competition.

Description Line One: The first line of your text ad description must do two things – answer the searchers questions and include the keyword or keyword phrase.

If someone is searching for discount contacts or cheap flights like the following text ad, let them know that you are the solution to their question.

If you include the exact keyword within your description line it will not only be bolded and catch the eye of the searcher but also show relevancy to the query.

Description Line Two: In the second line of your text ad it is important to set yourself apart from your competition. If you do not require credit checks for loans or you have more products available then your competition, let them know through your text ad.

Most importantly your second line should contain a CTA or Call To Action. If you are attempting to have site visitors sign up for free information using a CTA like ‘Sign Up Now!’ will set an expectation of the potential visitor. If you are driving searchers to your site to apply for a loan using a CTA like ‘Get Cash Now’ or ‘Apply Now!’ can help lead to conversions.

Justin Freid Talks PPC Best Practices on The NuSpark Marketing Show

I recently had the pleasure of joining Paul Mosenson of NuSpark marketing to talk about PPC best practices on the NuSpark Marketing Radio Show.

During the show we touch on subjects such as ClickEquations PPC Software, campaign structure, writing text ad copy, SEO and PPC working together and other PPC best practices.

Give it a listen here: Justin Freid Talks PPC Best Practices

Bidding On Competitor Brands Names – PPC

Bidding on competitor brand names can be an effective and profitable tactic for your PPC marketing campaigns. If done correctly, you can present your company’s brand and/or products side by side to someone who is searching for  products or services that you also offer.

The key to success is setting up a proper account structure and selecting the terms you bid on to reflect the correct sections of the purchase cycle that could ultimately lead to a conversion for your business.

Account Structure:

The first item to tackle is the account structure. Quality Score can have a ‘trickle up’ effect and have a negative effect on other terms within an ad group or campaign. Competitor brand terms should be treated like your own brand terms and be separated into their own campaign. With each competitor receiving their own ad groups.

It is quite likely that click-through-rates, conversions and Quality Scores will be lower for your Compteitor-brand name campaign. You will want to also keep these keywords separate for reporting purposes as well. Having these separate from the rest of your campaigns will help you understand the profitability of bidding on your competitors brand names.

Targeting The Right Part Of The Purchase Cycle

The next item to address when bidding on competitor brand names is to gear your campaign structure to attack different parts of the purchasing cycle. Depending on how granular you get with your structure, this could be done at the ad group level.

When bidding on competitor brand name terms you want to be able to take advantage of searchers who are still in the research or fact finding stage of the purchase cycle. Ideally you want to present your company’s product or service as an alternative when a searcher is gathering information about a competitor. They may have never heard of your brand or been focused on your competitor but an intriguing text ad accompanied by a informative site with a optimized call to action could help you convert searchers who were initially searching for your competitor. Think of it as taking up a block of real estate on in your competitors neighborhood.

Putting Negatives To Use

You can also use negatives to block your ads from showing to certain search queries. If your know certain keywords or phrases suggest a potential customer is extremely far along in the purchase cycle, you can use those as negative so you do not waste your marketing budget.

Setting up a competitor name campaign can take some time, you cannot just create an ad and set your competitors name to broad match. If the steps above are followed it can be a highly profitable and effective marketing tactic.

Query -> Text Ad -> Landing Page Consistency

In order to maximize conversions it is important to present your potential customers with the information or answer they are searching for. A person heads to a search engine to ask a question, our job as SEMs is to answer their question in a small ad and direct them to our or our customer’s website which will ultimately lead to a conversion.

This best practice starts when creating your ad groups, I personally prefer to create individual ad groups for each match type i.e. one for exact, one for phrase and one for broad. By doing this you can create ads that match up well with the search queries entered by the searcher.

With the Exact match ad group, you have the ability to get very targeted with your ad text and can utilize the keywords or key phrases within the ad text copy. This will provide the most consistency and match to the searchers query. The phrase match ad group while still quite targeted, you may have to be less granular with your ad text.

The area that most PPC Account Managers or small businesses have problems with is creating relevant text ads that match up with the search queries that Google matches up to broad match keywords. Google has been known to match up some quite irrelevant queries. One of my clients was having their Municipal Bond keyword matched to titles of James Bonds movies.

But with proper negatives in place, you still will have your text ads being matched up to a wide array of search queries. With this in mind, when creating text ads for your broad match ad group, you should create less granular, high level text ads that can be matched up with multiple queries. This will help you keep the QueryàText AdàLand Page Consistency
In place.

By keeping your ad groups smaller, with a smaller variation in keywords, you can still create ads that are relevant to the queries Google broad matches to your ads.

After creating a common message from the search query to the text ad the next is to continue to answer the searchers question on the landing page. Just sending a visitor to your home page and expecting them to find your product or service conversion page will likely result in extremely low conversion rates.

With a tightly structured account you can set your text ads or keywords to land at specific pages that are related and use the same wording as the text ads. If you have your ad groups set up by product type or service this should not be an issue. This consistency will provide the searcher with a feeling of finding a relevant page to their search. You can go about this by creating multiple landing pages that are very targeted to your product or services.

This common message throughout your advertising efforts should help you attract searchers that are ready to convert.

Interested in helping your business reach its potential? Contact Front Street Consulting, a Philadelphia SEM Company, at info@frontstreetconsulting.com