Are you an advertiser or business owner questioning the effectiveness of Pay-Per-Click (PPC) in your marketing strategy? Though PPC can indeed cost more than other advertising media, we’ve seen businesses nearly double what they spend when they execute their campaigns properly.
In addition, though PPC advertising is currently available on Google, Facebook, Twitter, and even LinkedIn, Google is by far the most popular platform.
And I’m not saying that because we offer Google Ads for clients. I’ve tried other platforms in my four years of eCommerce and Google Ads has always outranked them, period.
Not only do the Google Ads campaigns have the ability to get more eyeballs on your brand itself, but they can also help you generate a bunch of extra sales while increasing ROI. If I start rambling about how many benefits PPC can offer your eCommerce business, it’ll take you days to finish this post.
So I’ll keep things simple.
The Google Ads campaigns that you launch, whether they’re shopping campaigns or search, can streamline a lot of the advertising you do in your business. Once they begin to optimize at an optimal level, there’s very little maintenance needed from your end to keep results going.
And in this post, I’m going to show you exactly what the most essential components of a high performing PPC ad are.
How To Create A High-Performing PPC Ad
The internet is a shopper’s favorite thing. Whether conducting product research, reading reviews, comparing prices, or just gaining new ideas, shoppers today depend on the internet. As a business owner, the best way to cash in on this ever-growing online market is to make your business more visible to searchers.
Pay-per-click ads should be your best friend when it comes to increasing traffic to your storefront. However, you need your advertising efforts to be backed by a quality campaign if you want to succeed.
Below, we describe a few components of a high-performing PPC ad that you need to know about as you’re getting started.
A Great Headline
The headline is one of the most critical aspects of your PPC ad, as it is the first thing that your viewers will see. It might even be the only element of the PPC ad that viewers actually read. So don’t miss out on the opportunity to earn new customers. Remember, you want to choose your words wisely because your headline can only have 25 characters. The best headlines, along with being clear and concise, contain heavily searched keywords.
We recommend including a value proposition within the headline. Do you offer discounts? Free shipping? An extra item with a purchase? If you have the space, include these incentives in your headline.
The last thing (and most important) to remember about your headline is keywords. Integrate keywords users are searching for because Google will grant ads a higher quality score if they also resonate with keywords in your ad group and landing page.
In order to do this, proper keyword research is needed as you don’t want to have any random keyword within the headline.
Description Line 1
Once you have captured your potential customer’s attention with a fantastic headline, it’s time to keep their interest with a unique offer to help you set yourself apart from the competition. Advertisers use the description line to promote their products and services (think of this as the meat of your ad).
Any solid description will have a mixture of proper copywriting along with the keywords you’re targeting. This section is for you to elaborate on your main headline. It’s always best to use up the entire character limit for the description.
Description Line 2
The second description line of your PPC ad should include action words to help provoke enthusiasm for your products or services and reel them in! You get another 35 characters here so that you can build off your first line and it should include a strong call-to-action (CTA). CTAs can help increase click-through rates and increase conversions.
These calls-to-action can include things like Buy Now, Contact Us, Sign Up, Shop Today, Get A Quote, and more.
If you’re struggling to find the best CTAs for your ad, create and test multiple ads with different options and then measure their effectiveness.
The Display Path
Believe it or not, the display path is actually an important section of your search ad. Your display URL is the website link that will be visible to searchers on the search engine result page (SERP).
Though it doesn’t necessarily need to be the exact link visitors will be taken to after clicking your ad, your display URL should match the domain of your landing page.
Choose wisely here because there is a strict 15 character limit for both the sections within this path.
For our clients over at Yoru Marketing, we simply use some of the keywords targeted for the campaign within this display path. For example, if one of the major keyword was “3D printers”, we would target “/ Shop Now / 3D Printers”.
The Destination URL
Unlike the display URL, the destination URL doesn’t have any character limits, and users can’t see it. Instead, it is the link to the optimized landing page you want them to land on when they click on your ad. Ensure that your landing page contains relevant keywords you used in your ad group and the exact offers you included in your ad text.
Remember, one of the major factors that determines your quality score is landing page experience. Are users just going onto your landing page and exiting or are they clicking on multiple pages and actually interacting?
You can measure the effectiveness of your landing page by adding URL parameters to your destination URL so that you can track visits and actions through Google Analytics.
Call Extensions
Adding a call extension is entirely optional because most of the conversions happen directly on the website. However, because mobile search queries are often much higher than desktop, PPC experts will strongly recommend including call extensions in your ads.
Call extensions are simply clickable phone numbers within your ad, making it convenient for potential customers to call you immediately after seeing your ad on their mobile devices.
Site Links
Like call extensions, site links are another optional component but highly recommended. Sitelinks direct potential customers to other pages on your website that might help them get the information they need or the answers they are looking for.
These can be to different pages on your website like the ‘About us’ page, ‘Contact us’, or even the different collections on your website. Google ranks ads with site links higher, increasing exposure on your website.
Attention-Grabbing Ad Copy
Just like with any ad you create for your business, a PPC ad demands compelling ad copy to attract the right (paying) customers to your website. And it’s not as simple as just describing the product you sell. You need to take things a bit further and add tons of emotion to the ad copy.
We don’t believe in copying your competitors but it’s definitely important to know what kind of ads they have running so you can be better. Simply search for the products you sell on Google and see how you can make your store’s copy better.
Ads using title text (each word starts with a capital letter) have proven to get more clicks than those which only use lowercase. Make sure your grammar is exemplary and that all your words are spelled correctly. Check that your links look right as well.
Try to take a step back and look at your ad through your customer’s eyes. Would YOU be compelled to click if you saw your ad?
Targeted Messaging
Though it depends on your business or offer, your ad copy should speak directly to your target audience. For example, you might consider adding location, age, and gender when testing your ads to see if these specific details can raise your conversion rates.
Great Offer
Your conversion rate will likely depend on how great your offer is. A great offer will help you stand out from the competition. Get more clicks by including a discount, special pricing, or free shipping.
You can even add this directly to your ad via the “Promotion extension” option or via the “Promotions” section of your Google Merchant Center for Google Shopping ads.
Clear Call-to-Action
We mentioned this above, but a clear call-to-action is crucial to getting great clicks. Be direct, concise, and tell your customers exactly what they need to do to take advantage of your offer.
Sense of Urgency
Last on our list of significant components of a high-performing ad is to add a sense of urgency to your ad copy. This encourages your audience to take immediate action and not wait to buy something off your site later. Limited-time offers are an easy way to create urgency and get your buyers to your website.
Bringing It All Together
PPC ad campaigns are an effective way to get more people to your site in a short period. Compelling copy can transform low click-through rates (CTR) into high ones. Combining well-thought-out copy, an offer they can’t refuse, and clear calls-to-action, your PPC ad will quickly become successful.
If you follow the above tips, you’ll hopefully create an outstanding copy for your next PPC ad and have it bring you in more revenue. Make sure that your steps involve testing and retesting your ads to see which elements can be optimized even more. Any PPC expert (like us a Yoru Marketing) will advise having at least two ads per ad group and encourage you to test different value propositions or keyword combinations so you can accurately assess which ads are performing best. Writing excellent ad copy doesn’t always happen on your first try, but testing allows us to evaluate what is working best for your customers.
Do you need help implementing high-quality PPC ad campaigns into your marketing strategy? Maybe you’re not sure how to combine PPC with your SEO efforts. Schedule a consultation with Yoru Marketing today and help us get more bang for your buck.
