The Art of (Search Advertising) War
If you compare your AdWords account to a war, with search advertising as your battlefield, then your ads are your army on the front line.
If you launch keyword missiles that are not perfectly targeted and highly optimised, they may land in range of your target, however, they will not have an impact.
Now imagine that your keyword missiles were coordinated perfectly to hit their targets?
In its simplest form, a well-written ad will filter out irrelevant clicks resutling in a better conversion rate. Therefore you will gain more ground by improved campaign performance, better click through rates (CTR), increased Quality Scores and ultimately your sales results and return on investment (ROI).
To ensure that your keyword missiles hit the bulls eye, here are a few key aspects to include when creating an advert
1. Call To Action
Every ad should contain a call to action. Depending on the products/services on offer, you need to add terms such as “Buy”, “Book”, “Download” or makes use of terms that create urgency such as “Now” or “Limited Offer”. For example, if you’re advertising a business that sells shoes online, in either your first headline or as the first line of your description, you could write ‘Buy Shoes Online Now!’.
Ensure that your call to action highlights the specific product you are selling and provides the target of your ad with a specific action that you would like them to take.
2. Title Case
Ads should make use title case, as this helps the ad to stand out, makes the ad look more professional and makes it look more appealing and more noticeable.
3. Use Keywords
It’s no secret that having the keywords you are targeting present in the ad copy is vital to the success of your ad campaign. If you are unsure as to how you include all your keywords into a short ad then you need to re-evaluate your ad groups as they may be too broad. Tightly themed ad groups make it easier to add keywords and key terms into your ads. It’s advisable to use your most popular keywords in your headlines, description and in your path if possible.
Some free keyword tools include:
Google AdWords Keyword Planner
4. Extensions
When you have relevant and valuable extensions combined with your ads it provides a more powerful message, giving both your ad and brand more authority. It also helps take up more real-estate on the search results page, which creates more chases for a user to click your ad.
For more on using AdWords extensions, read this article!
While there are many other key optimisation tricks to create great ads, these are just a few ideas that will help you on your way to winning the search advertising war.
Need more advice on the art of search advertising? Contact us today, we are only a phone call away.
