Your ads aren’t working the way you want them to? Then try our tips and write your ad copy in a way that suits both you and your target audience.
Type in keywords, write a few lines and your store sales will increase thanks to paid search ads – unfortunately, it’s not that easy! Especially when it comes to text, you can do a lot of things wrong and tempt potential buyers to click on your competitors’ ads rather than landing in your store. That’s why we’ll explain below how good and effective ads should be structured and what tips you can use to get more out of your campaigns. Stay tuned!
Ad titles and descriptions – Ad text structure
Text ads at SEA providers like Google or Bing follow a fixed structure, which cannot be changed! The number of allowed characters must be respected in any case – otherwise you can not save your ideas and certainly not go live. For a long time, Google and Co. considered the so-called “Expanded Text Ads” (ETAS) as the basis of every campaign in the search network. These expanded text ads consist of up to three ad titles (maximum 30 characters) and two descriptions (maximum 90 characters). In addition, there are two paths of 15 characters each, which can be appended to the displayed URL.
When it comes to copywriting, advertisers must adhere to Google’s so-called editorial guidelines, which Google says are intended to keep ad quality high for users. Thus, lurid statements, too many punctuation marks, or the capitalization of individual words such as “Order now FAST” are not permitted.
However, the end of the extended text ads has already been heralded – as early as June 30, 2022, Google will no longer allow you to create new extended text ads or edit existing texts. However, the ads will continue to be delivered and will be available with the associated reports. If the information in the ad title or description is no longer up to date, users only have the option of pausing the ads or reworking them in the new ad format of responsive ads.
- A special form: the responsive ads
Long before the phasing out of extended text ads, Google launched the so-called responsive text ads. These simplify the campaign creation for users, because a large part of the control lies with Google itself. The ads can be compared with a construction kit, from which Google picks out exactly the combination of titles and descriptions (up to 3 ad titles and up to 2 descriptions) for each individual user query, which seems to be the most promising for this searcher. You save a lot of time, because instead of having to type a lot of individual ads in different combinations, you only give Google a selection of ad titles (maximum 30 characters) and descriptions (maximum 90 characters), which can then be flexibly combined with each other. However, responsive ads do have one disadvantage: because of the flexible combination of titles, it is no longer possible to have texts that build on each other – instead, all the titles and descriptions you enter must also function separately from each other. - Make sure youadd assets to your ads
You’ve probably heard of so-called assets (formerly ad extensions) in Google Ads. These are also an important part of your ads and can help you to get the best performance out of your texts. With the assets you have the possibility to extend your ads with additional elements like a phone number, an address, a listing of your products and categories or your offers and discount codes. It has been proven that searchers prefer such information-rich ads and the click-through rates can be significantly higher when using assets. You can either set up the categories individually for each campaign or you can set them up at the account level so that you only have to do the work once. You can find more information about all adjustable ad extensions in our blog on this topic.
Tips for writing successful ad copy
Your ad texts achieve many ad impressions, but the clicks and thus the purchases in the store are missing? Perhaps the reason lies in the way you communicate with your potential customers. Not every ad is equally well received by your target group – which makes it all the more important not only to be creative, but also to test your ideas and ads in the form of meaningful A/B tests. Do my potential customers jump at lurid texts or do they perhaps feel best served with questions? Do ads with specific offers go down particularly well, or does it perhaps make sense to adapt my text style to my female and male target groups? In the following, we’ve put together some tips that can help you turn your ads into top performers and boost your sales.
- Respond to users and their needs
Have you ever asked yourself what your potential buyers actually want from your ads? Maybe they don’t just want to know about your low prices, but also about the benefits of using your product. Focus on the benefits for your customers and show them what they can expect when they click on your ad – whether you’re promoting your fun carnival costumes or your tuxedos. - Write creative texts and ask questions
Dialogues through questions, emotional texts, special characters in moderation – when it comes to texting your ads, you can let your creativity run free. Of course, all within the editorial Google guidelines! Do some research on how your competitors communicate with their customers and think about how you can stand out from the standard with your ad texts. Depending on the target group, it can also make sense to write more female and more male ad texts and to play them out specifically to the different user groups. - Numbers, numbers, numbers!
What attracts the most attention in your text ads? Numbers! Not only do they convey information about your offers and prices, but the eye also lingers on the characters like a distractor and thus attracts the attention of your target group. You can use this effect, for example, to communicate prices in your ads or to offer a discount. Statements such as “0 € shipping” can also be the deciding factor in why a user chooses your ads. Or try a temporary time pressure by communicating offers and discounts only in a certain period of time.
Of course, you don’t have to implement all of these tips at once – feel free to use them as food for thought to gradually polish your copy. Our tip: Don’t forget to run your ads performance-independently, so you can analyze the performance of each copy and decide which copy strategy your customers will respond to best.
