Six Writing Tips for Google Ads

Writing Google search ad copies is like creating art. It requires not only creativity, but also professional knowledge. Getting the attention of your customers through text whilst abiding by Google’s ad text limit (ie Headlines: 30 characters, Descriptions: 90 characters) is hard.

Start from the audience’s point of view, not yours. Imagine who they are and how they search on Google. It is important to consider a full digital experience of your audience in order to succeed in this craft. 

Know your unique selling points (USP)

There are so many brands in the world that offer similar products or services as yours.  It’s crucial to show your key audiences your point of differentiation through effective copywriting. Think about what makes your brand so unique? Why should someone pick you over another brand? Is it free shipping? Or 15% off the 1st order? It’s time to call it out. 

Have a strong call-to-action (CTA)

Another tip for writing effective search ad copy is to include a strong Call-to-Action to tell your audience to take action after reading what you have to offer.

Action points could be something like ‘find out more’, ‘subscribe now’, shop now’ etc… The best practice is to include at least one CTA in one of the headlines; or use it at the end of one of your description lines, or both.

Use promotional offers

Retail space is a competitive game. If you have a good promotional offer, show it on the search ad as Google shoppers love a good offer. For example, for the Nine West ad shown below:

The offer “25% Off Full Priced Styles” was placed in a prominent position of the ad. This helps the brand to stand out from other ads immediately. 

It’s important to make sure that the offer on your ad copy is always matching the offer on your website. This will avoid the risk of false advertising leading to poor users’ experience.

Ad extensions are the help you need 

There are several ad extension options available that can be used together with your ad copy. Ad extensions are a great way to expand the real estate of the ads on the Google Search Result Page. As a result, increase the visibility of your brand. 

And did we say that these add-ons are free for advertisers unless someone clicked on the ad?

Some of my favourite ad extensions include Sitelinks extensions, Image extensions and Lead form extensions.

Sitelinks

• Take people to specific pages on your website 
• Supplied by descriptions (35 characters long). Those are not necessarily shown at all times.
• You can schedule them for specific start and end dates
• You need at least 2 for desktop and 1 for mobile to appear in the ad (desktop – up to 6 can appear, Mobile – up to 8 can appear at the same time)

Image extension

• Can help drive performance for advertisers, with compelling visuals of products or services
• Aspect ratio: square and landscape (optional but recommended)
• Dynamic image extension option
• The account must be opened for more than 90 days and can’t promote any sensitive content in order to be able to use image extensions
  
  

Lead form extension

• Allow users to submit their information in a form directly in your ad
• You can add it to search, video, discovery and display campaigns
• The information can be downloaded in a CSV file (only leads submitted in the last 30 days)

Let dynamic features work harder for you

Ad relevance is crucial to the health of your campaign. Irrelevant ads will bring negative experience to your potential audiences. As a result, you may not get as many sales or leads as you wish to get.

You can work harder by spending hours optimising the performance of your account, or, you can work smarter by leaving this dirty work to Google’s machine learning.

The two dynamic features that I love to use are Countdown and Location insertion. These functions (only available in the Responsive Search Ads format) can be found after typing “{“ in the headline or description line of the ad copy shown below:

For retail clients, we like to use the Countdown option to push the urgency of the offer to our audiences. 

Dynamic location insertion is an effective way to adapt your customers’ regular location or locations of interest. Our team used this feature in a COVID lockdown-related campaign recently – as lockdowns were happening across different states in Australia. Based on campaign location, we were able to target users with relevant messaging based on their current location without creating many variations of ad copies

A/B Test 

Whether it is experimenting with language, offers or keywords, test and learn is the only way to create the ad that resonates with your audience the most.

Your tests can include:

• Comparing Responsive Search Ads (RSAs) ad copy with Extended Text Ads (ETAs) (note: ETAs are going away in 2022)
• Adding dynamic features to one variation of the copy and compare 
• Try different CTAs and see which one is performing better
• Change punctuation or word order
• Use language that is more natural for your audience

Running ads can be effective for your business in various ways, but one of the most important is the fact you can easily increase your results if you have the right approach. 

Get in touch with Growthops Digital today to learn more about ads and all things digital!

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By Dominika Kleinova, Paid Media Specialist at GrowthOps Digital

GrowthOps Digital is a full-service digital agency that offers end to end digital marketing services such as Google Ads, Social Media, Affiliate and Partnership Marketing, and more. Speak to us about your growth needs today.