When doing pay-per-click advertising, a big challenge is to fit all the messages that an advertiser wants to convey in the very limited space available by search engines. However, by looking at each section in a little more depth, marketers can sharpen their focus and view copywriting as a formula for effective advertising.
The first part of the ad is the headline. The main purpose of the headline is to draw attention to the ad itself. After all, if no one takes a look at the headline, he probably won’t read any further. Google bolds keywords that match between the search query and ad text, so this is one way to highlight your ad message, although more creative text can also be effective even if it’s not bold.
The next part of the ad is the first line of the description. This can be longer than the title and is intended to begin to focus on the features, benefits, and unique selling proposition of the business or products/services themselves. It should give the searcher a reason to keep reading the ad. Adding punctuation to the end of the first line will make it stand out more if it’s in the first one or two spots of sponsored search results.
The third part of the ad is the second line of description. This section should mainly focus on the call to action after the benefit message is given in the first line. Using an exclamation point is usually a good idea, as the main goal is to convince the searcher to click on your ad if they find your message relevant to their search.
Finally, the display URL must be included with every ad shown. However, the display URL does not have to be exactly the URL of the landing page found on the website. The root domain must be the same, but the landing page does not have to exactly match the displayed URL. Therefore, it is vital to think of this as an opportunity to reinforce the marketing message, rather than simply convey information about the website itself.
There are a number of different ad copy formulas that can be followed for effective marketing messages. A couple are listed below.
attractive headline > Feature > Benefit > display url
attractive headline > Benefit > Call to action > display url
attractive headline > Unique selling proposition > Call to action > display url
One last point is that it is often illuminating to use this paradigm to analyze competitors’ ads and break them down into their components. Many times, marketers simply focus on features and calls to action, while neglecting an effective headline and not using the display URL to its full potential.