adwords

writing good adwords ads

The secrets to writing good AdWords ads

This is the second part of our How to use AdWords series.  In part 1, we covered things you can do on your website that will improve conversion rates after people arrive on your website. In this part we’re going to go right back to the beginning and look how writing good AdWords ads will make it easier to get the clicks that convert into leads. What it boils down is understanding how to write good benefits led copy that resonates with our prospective visitors if we want that conversion. Read on to discover our top, road-tested tips for writing good AdWords ads.

Where will your ad rank?

We’re going to be slightly controversial here. Being in first position isn’t absolutely everything. Sure, your ads will get more clicks if it’s at the top of the page than in sixth position. It’s not necessarily worth paying six times as much to be in first place as you would to be in second.  You can find a more in depth discussion on Adwords bidding strategies in this WordStream article.
When you’re writing an AdWords ad, the copy is just one small part of what makes it work. Put simply, there are four elements that determine where your Google AdWords ads appear and how much you pay for a click. These are:

  • The text in your ad
  • The content on your landing page
  • What visitors do when they arrive on your website
  • How much you’re willing to pay

The first three of these factors contribute towards your ad’s Quality Score. The higher your quality score, the less you’ll pay for each click on your ad. A high quality score makes a huge difference. With a quality score of 4 you’ll pay, on average 2.5 times as much per click than you would on an ad with a quality score of 10.
Hitting a quality score of 10 requires several weeks of tweaking and trial and error. The best advice we can give when you’re starting out is to be totally honest. Don’t promise anything in your ad that you can’t actually deliver. If you do then two things will happen. First of all, Google will scan your page and realise that it has little to do with your ad copy. Secondly, many people who click on your ad will bounce when they discover you’re not actually solving their problem. Both of these issues will drag down your quality score. You’ll pay more for each click and your rankings will suffer.

Are you breaking Google’s rules?

Google has plenty of rules that you need to follow when you’re writing good AdWords ads. Break these rules and your ads simply won’t run. Some of them are enforced automatically by algorithms, others rely on manual review. This means that you might get away with breaking Google’s rules for a short while but Google will eventually catch up with you.
Some off the rules you should be aware of when you’re writing your first AdWords ads include.

  • Exclamation marks are forbidden
  • There are strict character limits on each segment of your ad. The ampersand can be your friend here
  • Not putting a valid web address in the Display URL field
  • Trademarks that you don’t own or have the rights to use.

You can find full details about Google AdWords’ copy policies on their website 
 

Expanding  your horizons

Got the hang of writing good adwords copy? Great! Now you can look at expanded text ads… here’s the expert explaining how:

Once you’re sure you have set up Adwords campaigns that will help you achieve your overall marketing objectives you can start thinking about improving marketing results by integrating your analytics goals as AdWords conversions, creating custom remarketing audiences and using smart lists for automatically generated audiences…

Need help writing good AdWords copy?

If this all sounds a little daunting then why not contact one of our digital marketing scientists. They’d be delighted to help you tweak your ads and landing pages to make them as effective as possible. If you’re not sure if your website is ready for a Google AdWords campaign then why not request a free website review?