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Writing the copy for your PPC ads can feel like an insignificant part of your marketing strategy. With in-depth audience, competitor and keyword research all completed, throwing together a couple of lines of copy can feel like an easy last step. After all, isn’t the hard part just getting your ad in front of the right audience?
It’s not that simple. Your PPC ad copy may be short, but it carries a lot of responsibility. It’s what convinces searchers to choose your business or product. Get it wrong and you’ll be wasting time, effort and even valuable ad spend.
In this guide, we’ll walk through what pay-per-click (PPC) ad copy really is, why it matters, and how you can write compelling, high-converting ads that speak directly to your audience. So, read on to find out how to write PPC ad copy that doesn’t just get seen — it gets results too.
Just because your PPC ad campaign is live, doesn’t mean the work on writing effective copy is over. The key to creating successful PPC campaigns is by consistently checking what is working, what isn’t working, and tuning your campaign accordingly. This includes your ad copy.
Create multiple ad versions built around a similar marketing strategy but with different ad copy, and track which is generating the highest click through rate. This ad copy testing will help you spot what is speaking to your potential customers and what is being ignored.
Does a benefit driven headline (‘Save yourself an hour every day’) drive more clicks than an offer (‘50% off this product’)? Or is social proof (‘Thousands of people are already experiencing improved productivity’) producing a higher click through rate?
You can even look if the presentation of the same information is having an effect (Is ‘£10 off’ generating more clicks than ‘25% off’?).
These are insights you can use in future ad campaigns too.
When it comes to PPC ads, you rarely have a lot of space to play with. Words are tight, and anything that doesn’t connect with your audience is a waste of valuable copy.
Make sure everything from your title through to your CTA is relevant to both your product, business or value proposition and – most importantly – that it’s relevant to your audience.
This goes beyond just the inclusion of relevant keywords. Anything you highlight about your product or business needs to be relevant to the keywords and audience you’re targeting, otherwise you won’t earn any clicks. Or, you will end up paying for clicks that don’t convert.
It doesn’t matter how many fantastic features your product has, your audience will only be interested in how it benefits them.
For example, ‘our windows have an A+ efficiency rating’ states a feature, while ‘our A+ rated windows will reduce heat loss and your heating bills’ explains how that feature benefits the customer.
This is much more persuasive as it connects with the customer personally, as well as giving a concrete improvement they can expect to see.
Building trust is a vital role of any copy, but when it comes to PPC Ad Copy the short space available can make it a difficult prospect. This makes social proof, one of the most valuable tools in inspiring trust, a must-have for your ad copy.
A glowing customer quote or short testimonial can be incredibly persuasive. It offers proof your product or service brings the benefits it claims and will encourage your audience to convert.
If you see a lot of your competitors using a similar headline (all built on a concrete numerical benefit for example) it is tempting to assume this is the most effective format to use. However, the benefits diminish the more people who use it – choosing between very similar offerings is a lot more difficult than clearly different ones. It takes more effort.
Picking an alternate approach will help you stand out, and potential customers may even be more likely to click-through simply because it’s easier than deciding between such similar offerings.
It doesn’t matter how beautifully crafted and compelling your PPC ad copy is – if it leads to a bland, boring landing page you still won’t win conversions. Your PPC landing page copy, design and approach need to be just as eye-catching and persuasive as your initial ads are.
Landing pages are so important to campaign success that we wrote a whole post about them. If you’re worried they’re the weak link in your campaign, then you can always look at getting custom landing page designs made for you instead.
When you’re trying to convince people to click on your PPC ad, it’s tempting to make bold claims and undeniable offers. But every click costs – and if your audience rapidly realises that you can’t deliver, once they reach your landing page, they’re going to leave without converting. That’s wasted ad spend.
Obviously hype your product or service, and celebrate the benefits it brings, but keep it realistic. If you could save people 10% of the time they spend on a task you should say this – but don’t claim it can halve the time just because it sounds more impressive. Your audience will realise this is unrealistic and your claim will erode their trust in you.
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