Few people have the training and expertise of professional copywriters, but that doesn’t have to stop you from writing PPC ad copy which reels in your target audience time and time again.
When Google PPC Ads are written with our 11 top tips in mind, the results can be stunning. The Google Ads network reaches a whopping 90% of internet users and the customers redirected to your site by effective PPC copy are 50% more likely to convert. All the more reason to sharpen your PPC copywriting skills.
This guide is intended for freelancers, entrepreneurs, and small-to-medium-sized businesses just getting started with pay-per-click Google Ads. We’ll introduce you to the fundamentals of PPC copywriting, how Google Ads works, and finish with a walkthrough of our choice of 11 tried-and-tested Google Ads best practices.
Google Ads and PPC copywriting
Pay-per-click advertising can take many forms, from the audio-visual to the text-based. Each time an internet user clicks on your ad, you pay a fee determined by how much you’ve chosen to bid on a certain keyword or search term.
The major benefit of PPC click-throughs is that the user is already looking for a solution to their problem or query, and has elected to search for that solution through your ad. As such, there is a higher chance that they will then convert: engaging with your products or services as a new customer.
But with almost half of all small businesses investing in PPC, the only way to stand out from the crowd is to ensure that the copy you write for your ad grabs your customers’ attention… and holds it. That’s why you’re here, after all: to learn how to make your PPC copy stand out.
When it comes to PPC, the most popular – and we would argue, the most effective – option to choose is a text-based Google Ad.
Google Ads formatting
Text-based Google Ads appear toward the top of search engine page results (SERPs) when activated by an internet user’s specific search. For example, you might ‘bee’ looking for spare parts for your pressure washer, as the customers of one of our clients often are. A search like “Pressure Washer Spare Parts” might trigger the following:
When writing your ad through your Google Ads account, Google sets a strict structure for how the final ad will look. The format of a Google Ad looks like this:
- Final URL: This is the link you want to attach to your ad; the page on your website that users will be taken to when they click through.
- Headlines: You get 3 headlines for each Google PPC ad, which will appear in one line separated by vertical dashes; each headline must be a maximum 30-characters long.
- Display URL: This is different to the ‘Final URL’; the Display URL is the link the user will see on your ad – it doesn’t have to be the same as the Final URL, even though it will link there.
- Descriptions: Google allows you 2 lines of description per ad, up to 90 characters each; oddly, these descriptions are often more successful if written in Title Case, even if it may feel unnatural to do so.
What’s the point of Google Ads extensions?
Google Ads extensions, also known as ‘Assets’, show additional information – often including additional pages from your website – to users depending on the relevance of their search. Extensions and assets are a free and effective part of any Google PPC campaign, thus are always worth taking the time to customise and optimise, even if they’re not guaranteed to be shown to every customer who sees your main ad.
11 top tips for PPC copywriting guaranteed to get you more clicks
Let’s dive straight into 11 Google Ads best practices which we’ve found to be most effective for improving your PPC copywriting skills.
Tip 1) Write from the customer’s perspective
Because Google Ads are shown to users based on their searches, we already know going into writing our ads that our target customers and clients have a query or solution which they’re looking to solve. This may be as simple as “Where to sell my car in Glasgow?” or as niche as “How do I get more people to visit my eCommerce website?”.
Effective PPC copywriting starts with getting in the mindset of your target demographic – your ideal customer. Think about what queries they could be Googling, and write your Google Ad(s) in a way which offers a quick, easy, and complete solution to their question.
Tip 2) Tap into your audience’s emotions
Emotional triggers grab attention and get more clicks, it’s as simple as that. Even the most competently written ads may go nowhere if they don’t tap into their audience’s emotions.
Have a think about what emotions your brand’s offering evokes. If you sell fashionable clothes, for example, then you want your PPC copywriting to evoke the emotions of feeling good, confident, and attractive. On the other hand, if you’re a divorce lawyer, the range of emotions you’ll want to trigger with your copy may include grief and anger.
Okay, sure, the ethics of this last example are questionable, but this is just marketing advice – what you do with it is up to you, within reason!
Tip 3) Spice up your copy with numbers and symbols
It sounds simple, but it’s true: when numbers and symbols are included in a Google Ad – especially in the headline(s) – the ad is more liable to get higher clickthrough rates. The psychology behind this is interesting, and may have a lot to do with how our brains work in diverse ways – some people engage more with mathematics than linguistics. However, it works, just know it does.
Including the price of your products or services in your headline can be an effective way to grab your audience’s attention and encourage them to click (provided the price is attractive and within their budget). Similarly, using numbers in the description copy to illustrate your brand’s success – such as percentage of customers helped – can be equally effective.
Tip 4) Address customer concerns pre-emptively
This tip taps back into the idea discussed up top: that PPC copywriting is all about getting into your customers’ heads.
People tend to require a little extra persuasion before they click on an ad, and if you can pre-empt their concerns before they even have a chance to voice them, then they’ll need far less persuading.
For example, if a customer is shopping for a first pressing of The Beatles’ underrated 1967 masterpiece, Magical Mystery Tour, and your local record store specialises in rare first pressings, then your PPC ad copy should assuage the customer’s concerns by including phrases such as “genuine,” “authentic,” “original first pressings,” and the like.
Tip 5) Be savvy with your character count
Google only gives you 30 characters per heading and 90 per description. That’s not a lot, so you have to make sure to make the most of them. When writing your PPC copy, be concise, direct, and straight to the point. At the same time, try and cover a variety of the benefits a customer will enjoy by interacting with your ad, rather than repeating the same thing a few different ways.
Equally, it’s crucial that you ‘frontload’ your PPC ad with your best copy. That is to say, put your best heading and best description first. On larger devices like iPads and laptops, all three of your headings and both descriptions should display without a problem. However, on some smaller handheld and smartphone devices, Google may only be able to display two headings and one description, so you have to make these count!
Tip 6) Competitive differentiation is key!
What makes you unique? Why should a potential customer click on your ad and not the ad of your competitor? Without the answers to these questions, your PPC copy can end up listless – well written, but with nothing new to add to the conversation. By differentiating yourself from your competition, you help your Google Ad to stand out from the crowd.
Tip 7) If you have a local presence, flaunt it
Depending on what type of business you run or the services you offer, you might be able to leverage your location. People tend to like engaging with local businesses in and around their community, whilst nearly 1/3 of all mobile searches are location-based. Use keywords pertaining to your location to tap into the local market.
Tip 8) Don’t get complacent with your CTAs
Effective Google Ad copy must include at least one CTA, or ‘Call to Action.’ A call to action is a sentence which actively encourages the customer to engage with your ad by appealing to their wants and needs. It should start with a strong verb, such as “join,” “improve,” “increase,” or “discover,” and should be both creative and unique. Tired old CTAs like “Get in touch today” will carry much less weight.
Tip 9) Optimise your display URLs with attractive keywords
As we discussed toward the opening of this article, your Display URL does not have to match your Destination/Final URL. Instead, when writing your Display URL you have the chance to double-down on your attention-grabbing copy by creating a unique and attractive URL which hits your core keywords – the same keywords potential customers will be looking for from their search engine results.
Tip 10) Write, test, rinse, repeat
Perhaps it goes without saying, but we think one of the most important parts of any effective PPC copywriting campaign is the analysis of it. Once you’ve confidently optimised the copy of your Google Ads, it would be folly to cast it out into the world and assume it’s going to work magic. Instead, keep an eye on your analytics across your range of PPC ads. Identify what’s working best for you, and what isn’t, and adjust your ad copy accordingly. This should be a cyclical and iterative process – as Google changes its rules, so too will the effectiveness of your ads change; so keep on top of that review process!
Tip 11) Hire a PPC agency to do the heavy lifting for you
At the end of the day, even with all of these tricks up our sleeve, few of us have the time and energy it requires to really master effective PPC copywriting and Google Ads management. Then, on top of that, there’s all of the PPC bid management work you have to do to make sure your ad is seen in the first place. Our last and most important tip for PPC copywriting is simply to let a dedicated PPC agency do the legwork for you!
The benefits of outsourcing PPC copywriting to the experts
By outsourcing all of your PPC and Google Ads needs to a Google-partnered web services agency, you save yourself time and resources whilst safe in the confidence that your PPC ads will be written and managed by people who do this for a living.
Whilst the PPC agency writes winning copy for your ads and gets them in front of your target audience, you can focus on all of the other important parts of running your business, ensuring that the behind-the-scenes part of the ads is the best that it can be.
Discover what the ‘busy bees’ at beefound.agency can do for you, and get your PPC advertising campaign off to a ‘buzzing’ start!
