The digital world changes every time we blink and new features and functionalities keep coming up. The latest must is automating anything that can be. However, when it comes to ad copy, the basics are still on and remain untouched. Ads will inevitably change, but text ads are still going strong and are a must in any 360 digital marketing campaign.

At the end of the day, even if you have the best bidding model working for you, use the latest AI technology, and review your Analytics data like it´s the air you breathe, a poorly written ad will not attract the right users.

An ad text that doesn’t read well, is not native, shows mistakes or doesn’t have a clear call to action will probably be automatically discarded by users, leading to enough impressions, but few clicks, and therefore a low click through rate and quality score (and therefore ranking in the long term).

After many years working as a specialist for Google Ads at Google, it still strikes me to see how many advertisers are missing the mark wen it comes to launching SEM campaigns. They think if they put money into important, competitive keywords they will show up in the first positions in search results, get clicks, and bang!, turn clicks into sales, when in fact they are missing the most essential part: what users read, and the first impression they get about your brand.

Your ad is the gate to your website

When a user writes a query in a search page, they are intentionally looking for a specific product. When users are closer to the purchase stage of the conversion funnel, it is especially important to make your ad appear relevant to them by reflecting the search terms they are using.

The best practice is to include search keywords in one of your titles, which the user initially focuses their attention on. If your campaign is well structured and segmented, that query will also be the main theme of your ad group.

Relevancy is a big deal

It is one of the biggest factors that Google takes into account to calculate the quality score of your ad as well as your keyword in relation to the ad and the landing page. So make sure you align your ad text and your landing page to the queries that are triggering your ads.

Make your ad stand out with Keyword insertion formula

In order to make your ad appear even more relevant to the user than those shown by competitors, we want to ideally show all the user’s search keywords in our ad text. For that specific purpose, you might want to use a “keyword insertion formula”. It works by writing the formula {Keyword:buy air purifier}.

When the user types exactly the same query as your default text ( “buy air purifier”), the text becomes bold. If the query is longer than the character limit for the title, our text by default (buy air purifier) will show up. You can also write the formula as {KeyWord:buy air purifier} if you want the first letter of each word capitalized. Or you may also want to use the formula in one of the description lines.

Always, always, include a call to action

Besides offering the exact product the user is looking for, you ad text should tell the user what to do. And that action should reflect exactly the main goal of your Google Ads campaign, whereas it is a purchase, or a request for information.

Depending on whether you are looking for sales, leads, or launching a specific promotion, you should make your ad stronger with messages of the type: “visit us today”, “book your next appointment”, “buy at 50% discount” or “find your favorite brands at low prices”. It´s not enough to show the product to the user: he/she needs to know what to do in order to get it. Be concise and guide them through your conversion path even before they click on your ad.

Describe your product benefits and set the right expectations

Put yourself in the user´s shoes. He searches online and sees 5 or 6 ads about the same product. Why should he/she click on yours?

You need to convince the user that your product is the best deal for them. In order to do that, you should highlight key aspects of your product or services such as “free and fast 24 hrs shipping”, “personalized services by expert agents”, or “the brands you are looking for at great discounts”. Think about your value proposition and make sure it is reflected in the text as to convince the user to click your ad within 2 seconds.

Let’s wrap it up then

As a general rule, you ad should include:

• A title which reflects the user´s query.
• A keyword insertion formula
• A call to action, either in one of the titles or included in the description text, which will prepare the user for the purchase or any other action to take upon arriving on your landing page.
• Any promotions, deals and offers that are currently active on your site.
• Any specific features or benefits that make your product stand out from your competitors. “Free shipping”, “Free returns” or “take a virtual tour” are just a few.
• An anticipation what the user needs to do when arriving at your landing page, such as in the case of having to fill out a form, buy the product, or contact you.

Take advantage of extensions

I know there are quite a few extensions to choose from in Google Ads, however, you can start with the basic ones which will exponentially increase CTR for your ad:

• Site links: you can add two additional lines of text with a deeper link for a specific category. For example, if you are showing a generic ad text for women sandals, which corresponds to your generic ad group “women sandals”, you might want to specify other features of this product section on your site like “platform sandals”, “heeled sandals”, “flat sandals”, or “flip flops”, each of them with a specific url which will land the user to that specific type of sandal. Moreover, you might want to include a specific site link to an existing promotion, let´s say “get flat sandals at 30% off”
• Call outs: These are little strings of text which are not clickable, but which can help you make your product´s key benefits stand out even more. “Personalized service” or “free delivery” are the most common ones.
• Image extensions: these increase CTR for your ad exponentially. Think about it. There are search results for shopping products and the option to search for products visually using image ads. The more visually appealing you make your ad, the better your compete with the rest of search results.

Use responsive search ads

The future of ads and in fact all digital marketing is automatization. And text ads don’t fall short on it. Expanded text ads have become extinct in favour or their cousin Responsive Text Ads, which have been around for a while but are now definitely taking over. According to Google, ETAs stopped working in June 2022, so you should already be on top of it.

When creating responsive text ads you can enter up to 15 different headlines and 4 ad descriptions. The system will combine all of them and will show the combination with the most traffic or conversions more often, depending on your campaign goals. So this is how you can maximize their use:

• Include different messages in your headlines and descriptions such as your brand, existing promotions, shipping cost, CTA for a specific catalogue or type of product, etc.
• Pin headlines with the brand name and promotion to 1st and 2nd position. Yes, you can choose which variation you always want to use and in which position.
• Don’t be repetitive. Keep in mind these ads also carry site links and other ad extensions so think about what features or web sections you want to keep in ad extensions, and what clearly defined, distinctive messages you want to show in your ad text.

Now you have some good tips on making attractive, meaningful ads which will show something useful to the user and hopefully increase conversions.

Important note: do not rely solely on the ad, the second part is up to you. Make your website easy to navigate and shop from. Work on your conversion funnel and show everything that the user needs to see or know before buying. The clearer and more concise, the better.

Continue to take care of your ads because they are the first impression users get of your company. Depending on how they resonate with your audience, they can be the gateway to your site and to a possible sale or conversion. Keywords, audience segmentation or bidding are very important, but so is the actually message you send to your potential customers.

I hope it helped! If it did just a tiny bit, don’t forget to like this article or follow me for more insights.

Happy marketing!