Top 4 Tips for Creating Effective Ad Copies

There are 4 main pieces in creating an effective search marketing campaign.

• Keyword Selection
• Creative Ad Copy
• Bidding Strategy
• Landing Pages

In this article we will focus on Creative Ad Copy also known as “Creatives”. Many of our clients vary in how much they would like to be involved in the ad copy process. Some are very strict in how we message value often needing approval from both their marketing team and their legal team. Other groups simply say, “You are the experts, make it happen”. Either way we always keep the client involved because we humbly acknowledge that our client knows far more about their products and their client base than we do (hopefully!).

However it is important to consider a few key things when it comes to creating an ad copy for search engine marketing. I’ve tried to boil it down to four main points.

1. Test, Test, then Test Again

The beauty of search engine marketing is that it is fully measurable. As long as you have your conversion tracking codes in place, you or your incredibly wonderful agency leadqual, can keep track of the click thru rate and the conversion rate of every ad variations. One of the biggest mistakes you could make is to limit your testing due to your strong inclinations or preferences. You may have a good grasp on what your client may be seeking when searching a particular keyterm, but hold that assumption loosely and be open to the data saying otherwise. Whether it is highlighting a product feature or a differentiator, you want to try different messaging and let the data show you what your clients want. You’ll often be surprised how the one you least expect to work becomes the gold mine while the one you were certain would be best turns out to be a dud. Also different keyword themes behave differently, so we always look at creative results on a granular level by keyword type.

If your account is very large, you should test 2-3 different global creatives across your accounts. Wait for a big enough sample size then cut out the poor performers. From this point you can test other creatives or just tweak variations of your current winner. Never test too many at once.

2. Cost Per Lead is where it’s at

Often it is easy to focus solely on click thru rate (CTR). It seems intuitive to look at CTR to see if an AD is effective in drawing visitors. This is true, but the next question to ask is what TYPE of visitors? If I put up an AD that says “Hey you click me now! First 20 clicks on this ad gets a free ipod!”.. you’ll probably get a ton of clicks, but no one is going to buy to fill out a form to get mortgage quotes. CTR is useful, but ultimately you have to ask yourself what the goal of your campaign is. Is it to get consumers to purchase something? Fill out a form? Click on an ad or listing? Then make that your point of reference when it comes to performance.

So is it conversion rate? Well yes and no. If you have a 30% conversion rate on one keyword and 10% conversion rate on another keyword which one is better? Most people will say the 30% conversion rate. Well what if I told you every click on the first keyword has a $5.00 cost per click (CPC), while the second keyword costs you $0.50 CPC. Just do the math and you’ll see the second one is far superior.

So in conclusion if your goal is to get the consumer to convert in some way, then what you want to measure success is by cost per lead. You can loosen your creative to get a stronger CTR at a lower Conversion Rate, or make it very tight and have a lower CTR and a higher Conversion Rate. You have to do the math and decide what works best.

3. Use Best Practices

Though I had emphasized the need to test, there are general best practices that as it says “generally” perform at a higher rate. Here are a few.

• Differentiate your message from your competitors: If everyone is doing it, do something else
• Emphasize your product/service differentiators
• Utilize Call to Action
• Use Attractive Language where applicable (i.e. free, easy)
• Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI): Test it. Be aware of what keywords combinations might be appearing on your ad. You don’t want ads that don’t make sense. (i.e. Indentured Servant – Whatever you’re looking for you can get it on eBay)
• Use Keywords related to your Adgroup. These will show up Bold.

4. Target your Ads to your Keywords or Geo Location

Sounds like a no brainer but not many do this well. You want your ad catered to the keyword that is being searched. This may mean making similar ads with tweaks for each keyword type. Again this is a lot of work that could heap large rewards. Consider if you typed in “2 bedroom apartments los angeles” in google. Which ad is more attractive to you?Hope that is pretty easy to understand.

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Paul Lee
Director of Online Marketing
LeadQual – Search Engine Marketing

Ad Copy Creatives google Search Engine Marketing SEM