PPC Ad Writing Tips

by Sean Rasmussen on March 17, 2010

in Online Advertising

Writing an effective PPC ad brings up several factors that are unique to this form of marketing. Even if you have created successful print advertisements in the past, you are dealing with a whole new beast when it comes to PPC ad writing.

PPC Ad Writing Considerations

There are several considerations which determine the specifics of PPC ad writing. For one, you have only 25 characters for a headline and 35 characters allotted to the brief description so you’d better figure out how to say what you want succinctly.

Next, grouping your keywords is of utmost importance. You cannot use the same ad for disparate keywords (well you can, but it does nothing for the success of your campaign). Relevancy of your ad to the targeted keywords is critical to gain successful click-throughs.

Finally, you must put each ad to the test. Until you have your ad in place for a while and then examine the analytics, you have no idea whether or not your copy is effective. Consider testing the headline and the description independently of each other to determine which area needs the most tweaking.

PPC Ad Writing – Types Of Ads

If you are ready to start PPC ad writing, you have four basic models to choose from: keyword headline, question, dynamic keywords, and creative.

The first one, keyword headline, is the most basic. Simply take the keywords you are bidding on and insert them into your headline. For instance, if your PPC campaign utilises the keywords “horse training DVD” you might write a headline that is, simply, “Best Horse Training DVD”. Note that due to character constraints, there is little else you could add to your keywords.

The second type of headline asks a question that is relevant to your target market. Using the example above, this headline might read “Is Your Horse Crazy?” This headline is sure to gain attention partly from its rather humorous query and partly because it speaks directly to the frustrated horse owner – your target market.

Using dynamic keyword insertion in your headline is a bit trickier. It takes some care to set this one up as you are creating code that changes the headline to match the exact search term someone used to find the ad. Not only can the result be a very awkward combination, it could get you into trouble. This type of headline is better left for very savvy PPC marketers using very specific and brief keyword phrases.

Finally, the last type of headline requires a bit of thought and a lot of inventiveness. The idea is to stand out from the crowd by creating a headline that makes someone do a double take. Consider the one major problem that all members of your target market share and expand on that. You may want to be totally irreverent. Perhaps you want to go the opposite direction of what most internet marketing education courses teach – refrain from using cheap or inexpensive and let the internet searcher know your product is aimed at a wealthier demographic. You’ll never know if your creative ad copy will work until you try it.