Improve your PPC copy with these tips
Organic SEO is great for building up a strong foundation for your company, but takes a long, long time, and won’t give you incredibly drastic results. Search engines and social media sites reward you for making posts consistently or ironing out any issues in your site, but they love it when you pay them. You don’t have to do this, of course, but even the most accomplished and popular companies benefit hugely from paid ads. That’s why they all do it.
All that being said, it isn’t just a “pay and win” strategy. A lot goes into creating a good PPC ad. You need to think really hard about who you’re targeting the ad at to avoid throwing money away, and make sure the copy in the ad is catered to them. This is what creates the line between a massively successful paid ad campaign and a bottomless pit of money.
The importance of copy is no secret, but it is difficult catching an audience’s attention, pitching a product to them and convincing them to click on it in 19 words (the median of Facebook ad text as reported by AdEspresso). There isn’t a golden formula or exact template we can give you, but these points will enable you to create more gripping and effective ads.
1. Demand attention!
Because PPC doesn’t have a perfect winning formula, a lot of pages copy the PPC ads from more successful companies, which abruptly stops all interest in the ads. In this regard, it’s best to do your own thing, because companies that are leading aren’t following.
Try to stand out from the group by giving incentives to those who click. A discount only available through the ad would be enough to convince a lot of people. Facebook ads are short, and Google ads are even shorter, so you have to focus on getting attention and winning them over before they scroll past. The big point of your ad is your unique selling point (USP), which should do a good job of turning heads as is.
Remember not try and fit a whole pitch in your ad, as the purpose is just to get them to open it and learn more. Getting someone’s attention is more valuable than being informative on a paid ad, but do make sure you have an informative landing page for people to reach when they click on it.
2. Use numbers
This is an age-old content headline writing technique, and also works for PPC ads. Numbers and statistics interest people, and this can improve your click-through rate (CTR) dramatically. Mike Hamers, guest blogging for The Write Direction, explained:
“Studies prove that readers, especially on the Web, don’t read all the words. They scan the text for:
- Headlines
- Highlighted words
- Bulleted lists
- Links”
You can use this to your advantage by having a price be the main focal point of your ad, or a big statistic related to your USP.
3. Nail the keywords
Keywords are extremely important in PPC. Customers are always searching for products or services that interest them, so getting keywords wrong will lose you a lot of business.
A good tip is to place yourself into the mindset of a customer. If you were looking for your product or service, what would you search on Google?
Long-tail keywords are important, as unchartered territory is cheaper.
Keep tabs on your conversion rates for different keywords and see which keywords or phrases give the best results. Swap out the less effective keywords for improved ones and see your numbers grow.
4. Get your call-to-action game up
Let your CTA do the talking. As you’re not allowed to have a load of text, bold is the way to go. Keep the text of the ad shorter and make your CTA stand out, using stronger and more emotive language.
“If dermatologists HATE her, then maybe I should see what she has to say.”
Again, think about the emotional advantage of your product, how the person will feel when they’ve got it, and what they’re missing out on by not having it.
If the reader already feels as if they’re missing out, seeing a “Don’t miss out, buy now” at the bottom could very well be the thing that makes them click.
5. Address the reader
Good copy for a PPC ad should sound like you’re speaking to the audience, as addressing them makes them feel more connected to the ad. Something like “Your new favourite burger” or “You’re about to be blown away” is intriguing and makes the reader feel important, both of which are characteristic of good copywriting.
Speaking of interesting customers, emotional copy can persuade someone to click your ad. If you can successfully make a reader fear missing out on something, or feel sad for the people a charity is helping, you’ve likely got yourself a click. Think about the problems your product or service is solving, and base your text on the emotions that would come with that problem.
6. Customers first
PPC ads are sometimes used as an echo chamber to scream to no one in particular about what makes your company good. Like we just mentioned, you have to almost have a conversation with your audience. Addressing them is a great step, but it’d be even more effective to go a step further.
Customers are looking for you to solve a problem. You have to think about them and them exclusively. The best way to show them that you care is to think about what problems they have, and explain why you’ll solve them.
If you’re in the customer’s shoes, you can pinpoint exactly what they’d be thinking, and write your copy using that as a foundation. It helps to not write anything until you’ve asked and answered this theoretical question.
Identifying and solving problems is the best way to show that you care about the customer.
7. Answer the biggest questions before they’re even asked
People get buyer’s regret quite frequently, so they’re often sceptical from the jump. This is why you need to put yourself in the customer’s shoes, consider any objections or issues they’d have, and explain clearly in the copy how it isn’t as big of a problem as they once thought. Most of the time, this is the price, and most of the time, advertisers will instead bring up an offer or monthly payment option.
If you’re providing solutions, this relaxes the customer and makes them more likely to buy.
8. If you’re local, let the locals know
People love something close to home. That’s why when a business mentions their area, viewers from that area are more interested in the product or service.
They could even view you as more friendly and trustworthy, which is a huge plus for a company looking for a solid home-turf market. You can even be a company that deals nationwide, by creating multiple ads for different locations, all with areas mentioned. You can be a huge company and still be local.
9. Test, test, test!
You’ve written some solid copy, and now you have to make sure it works. You can follow all of these tips and that still won’t ensure that your ads will draw everybody in, and that’s why you have to conduct regular testing. This involves creating multiple ads all tweaked slightly. Try a different CTA, a different approach with your tone of voice, a new image, a new offer or any other small adjustment that may make a difference. This helps you build up data, see what works and change what doesn’t.
Testing ad copy is a best practice and one that you should make sure to do with every PPC ad you create.
How to A/B test ads:
- Create two ads
- Activate both of them
- Wait around 3-14 days (until the results are visibly different)
- Keep the ad with the higher CTR, change the lower one
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