 | | | |  | October 15, 2005 | | By: Louise Rijk - Bio - Blog |
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| | | | | Getting More Bang for Your PPC Buck:
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Writing PPC Ads That Save Money and Get Results
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is a quick, effective, and trackable - way to promote your business online. Rather than pay exorbitant amounts of money to advertise your business to a large pool of people - many of which don't need your product or service - PPC advertising allows you to target your ads to interested parties and only pay based on results. In order to take advantage of this unique advertising vehicle and maximize your PPC campaign's effectiveness, you need to include writing compelling and relevant text ads in your advertising strategy.
 Although PPC is a powerful advertising method, it has become increasingly complicated the last few years. It's also gotten more expensive, leaving less room for error. Thanks to the rising costs of keyword bids and changes to Google's AdWords position and billing algorithm, paying close attention to your PPC campaign strategy and ad text is more important than ever. Adhering to some simple rules of thumb can help you maximize your PPC budget.
Some important elements of a successful PPC campaign at the major syndicated ad networks Google Adwords, Yahoo! Sponsored Search, Ask Jeeves and soon MSN adCenter are: selecting the right keywords, targeted landing pages with a good offer and call to action and an automated bid management and ROI tracking program that keeps your pay-per-click campaign running and provides performance results.
PPC Ad Ranking Basics
The PPC ad ranking systems currently employed by Google and Ask Jeeves - and in the near future Yahoo Sponsored Listings and MSN's adCenter - reward the most compelling and relevant text ads. Early studies from Overture Services (now Yahoo Search Marketing) indicated that having the keyword repeated in the ad title and ad copy can increase the click-through rate by 50 percent.
Although each PPC ad network has its own unique ad ranking algorithm, their common principle is that ads are not ranked solely on bid, so spending the highest amount per click does not necessarily earn you the top sponsored listing spot for a keyword.
Text ads with the most compelling and relevant ad copy get a discount on the cost-per-click price. This means they can achieve the same rank position in the search results listings at a lower cost-per-click price or a higher position for the same click cost. This gives the low budget advertiser the opportunity to compete more effectively against competitors with big ad budgets and squeeze more Web traffic out of their PPC advertising campaign.
Benefits of relevant and compelling text ads to the advertiser are:
- Higher click-through rates. With good text ads, after some tweaking when the campaign is running for a while, you can achieve a click-through rate of between 7 to 8 percent.
- Lower PPC advertising cost.
Writing PPC Text Ads That Increase Conversion
It is important to keep in mind that text ad copy writing practices vary depending on the pay-per-click ad network and sometimes by the industry you are targeting. Here are some tips for writing better pay-per-click text ads that hold true much of the time:
Before writing the text ads:
- Prepare and finalize your keyword list.
- Identify the immediate benefits that your product or service will offer the web user.
- Think about what you want the searcher to do after they have read your ad: call today, contact or request information, buy now.
Writing text ads:
- Start writing a few sentences for each keyword, or group almost identical keywords, without thinking about the available ad space, then narrow the copy down by removing unnecessary words.
- Include a compelling offer. Make sure the offer differentiates you from your online competition.
- If you sell on price, include the price of the product or service in the copy.
- Use keywords in the ad title and in the ad copy, if possible. Include brand keywords when you sell brand products or services.
- Embed a benefit statement in the copy.
- Include a call to action such as buy now or call now.
- Create a sense of urgency when appropriate: expiration date, limited availability.
- Include power words: expert, professional, discount, guaranteed.
- Make sure the message in the ad extends to the page your customers land on after they click on your ad.
Those who write relevant and powerful text ad copy have a clear advantage in a world where PPC ad platforms boast more accurate, relevancy-based ad ranking algorithms and are able to get the most out of their budget. A strong PPC campaign can more than pay for itself when executed correctly. However, if you don't heed the guidelines above, you could end up losing money.
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