If you have been working with PPC for a while you’ve probably already reached the conclusion that your text ads play a large part in determining the overall success of your PPC account. While bidding on the right keywords ensures that your ads are appearing in front of qualified searchers, if your ad copy isn’t enticing, there is a good chance that searchers won’t reach your site. Worse still, they may end up at your competitor’s site. It doesn’t matter that your competitor charges more for a lower quality product while providing less service than you do. Why not? Because they wrote a better text ad. My old soccer coach used to say that you missed every shot that you didn’t take. In PPC, you miss out on every potential customer who doesn’t click.
Need more proof that text ads make a difference? Just take a look at some of our previous posts that highlight the impact that writing better ads can have.
Now I know what you’re thinking. “Geez Adam, of course I know that writing highly relevant, compelling text ads is important, but writing text ads is hard. Plus, it’s time-consuming to boot!” That’s why at WordStream we’ve begun to explore ways to make writing text ads easier and faster. For example, let’s take a look at our recently updated text ad authoring tool. If you are familiar with WordStream you can see that the old authoring tool has been replaced by a suite of new tools. Let’s take a look at how the new tools help you write better text ads:
Iterate Faster
WordStream helps you quickly write new text ads by giving you access to what you’ve previously written. With the new tool you can quickly access and copy other text ads that appear anywhere in your account. Plus we show you the relevant statistics so that you see how the ad is performing. Once you’ve copied the ad into the tool you can quickly edit your ads to ensure that they are still relevant in the new ad group.
WordStream also lets you access your history for each text field. This means that you can easily mix and match your offers and calls to action and can easily reuse headlines. By simply clicking on the history drop-down you can see your most recently used ad copy, and if you start writing we’ll filter your history for you so that you can quickly find the perfect text for your ad. (Click to enlarge.)
Image may be NSFW.
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Be Relevant
One of the Golden Rules of text ad writing is to include your highest volume keywords in your ad text. This increases your CTR because it aligns your ad with the user’s intent. Plus Google will put any words in your ad that match the user’s search term in boldface, which serves to draw additional attention to your ad. To make this easy for you WordStream puts the most impressed keywords for your ad group right at your fingertips. (Click to enlarge.)
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Avoid Common Pitfalls
There are a lot of best practices to follow when writing text ads. That’s why WordStream created a unique best practice check that will review your ad and let you know if there are any best practices that you aren’t employing. We’ll also make sure that you aren’t violating any of Google’s most common editorial guidelines. If you do, you’ll see a warning message. (Click to enlarge.)
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
We know that writing compelling text ads can be challenging even for the most talented marketer. That’s why we’re dedicated to making the process as quick and easy for our users as possible. And we’re not done yet. I can’t tip my hand too far but stay tuned for additional innovations that we have coming down the chute that will do even more to help users write great ads.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Adam Shain is a product manager at WordStream, where he works primarily on expanding and improving the PPC management platform. Previously he worked at J-Town Productions and served in the Strategic Planning and International Cooperation Division of the Israel Defense Forces. He holds an MS in Neuroscience from Brandeis University and an MBA from Babson College. Adam lives in Sharon, Massachusetts, with his wife and two adorable children.
This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.