Google Ads is the most popular pay-per-click (PPC) advertising network for a reason. It has the biggest audience and the most sophisticated AI technology behind it.

The thing is, Google Ads can be a little intimidating when you first use it. How do you know if an ad is going to perform well? Yes, there’s a Quality Score but that isn’t a guarantee for success. What makes a really good Google Ad?

Let us expand your knowledge with 10 tips, hints, and suggestions to turn your words into some kickass ads!

1. Don’t directly sell your product in your ad copy

The job of your PPC ads is to target visitors to your website. Successful Google ads will make people want to know more about your product or service and turn them into paying customers. This means it should only attract those who are actually interested in what you’re offering, not random clicks. That helps your impression metrics and gives you a healthy click-through rate (CTR).

No more wasted ad spend.

The only real exceptions to this are when you use ad extensions such as a contact number or physical address. These are essential in encouraging users to call or visit your store without needing them to find your details on your website.

2. Use your keywords in your ads (and try some power words)

What do these keywords all have in common?

• ‘Hairdresser in Nottingham’
• ‘Plumber in Leeds’
• ‘buy bulk pet food’
• ‘replacement bags for Kirby cleaner’

They’re very specific search terms and there’s an intent to buy. That’s why you need to think about what keywords you try to target and feature in your ads.

Your ads need to be clear and succinct (don’t forget those character limits) and using the right keywords is a big part in doing that. That’s why Google Ads is perfect for attracting very targeted visitors.

To add something extra, you can try using power words. They are adjectives that trigger emotions and evoke curiosity. They can work well in marketing and could make a real difference. But it’s important not to try and stuff them in. There’s no guarantee they’ll work for you or your brand but that’s what split testing is for.

It’s important to keep an eye on which keywords are your best performers too so you can put more budget behind them. For keywords that are getting no clicks, you’ll want to pause them and save spend. Software like Adzooma can monitor your keywords for you and prompt you to make appropriate changes. That way you can be sure you’re getting the most for your money.

3. Link your ads to appropriate landing pages

Your landing page is the page you send visitors to. Once they’ve clicked on your ad, they expect to find a page that matches the ad. If they see an unrelated page, that’s a wasted impression, wasted click, and your bounce rate will go up. All because you linked the wrong landing page to your ad.

So if your ad is for the keyword ‘buy bulk pet food’, you need a landing page that allows them to buy pet food in bulk. Don’t send them round your website to find it.

4. Offer the benefits of using your product/service in your ad copy and landing pages

You need to focus on telling your visitors how your product or service will help them, save them time, save them money, make their life easier and so on. 

Remember, because you are not the only one in your marketplace, you need to grab attention and let them know you have what they need to solve their problem.

Check out other ads in your marketplace to see what others are saying in their ads. How can you stand out? Are there benefits your competitors aren’t pushing?

You can also try adding the price of your product/service, to pre-qualify your prospects and use extensions where possible to get more features in the ad too.

5. Define your USP and use it

What it is that makes your offer, brand, product or service unique? Are you the best in the industry, most cost-effective, most experienced, the original, most established, most effective or proven?

This can form the basis of your USP (Unique Selling Proposition).

A USP has the power to turn a flaw into a strength. Car rental company Avis spent a lot of time in Hertz’s shadow, which affected income. So the company had a revamp, hired Doyle Dane Bernbach (now known as DDB) used made that silver medal a gold one with their ‘We Try Harder’ campaign. The results: Avis’ market share went from 11% to 35% in 4 years.

It’s one of the most famous ad campaigns: it was unique, it sold the brand, and left the customer with a proposition that led to more than tripling their market share.

Put some thought into this as it can transform you into a recognised brand very quickly.

6. Local business? Use geotargeting

If you are a local shop looking for local people, you obviously don’t want to be wasting clicks from people who are miles away and can’t get to you.

This is where geotargeting comes in.

You simply add geographical boundaries to the reach of your ad. This way you can be sure that only those people who are in your defined area will see your ad.

This is yet another great benefit of Google Ads, and it means you won’t be paying for clicks from people that have no chance of becoming customers.

As an aside: it’s might also be worth considering local service ads for services like plumbing and electrics.

7. Make your ad stand out with ad extensions

As you can probably imagine, the more space your ad takes up on the results page, the more attention it will attract.

Ad extensions allow you to include extra information in your advert. They include:

• App extensions which add a link directing people to the app store to download your app. This is only available on tablets and mobiles.
• Call extensions which enable people to call you by clicking a phone number in your ad.
• Sitelink extensions which add deep links to pages on your website, along with a brief description.
• Callout extensions which feature extra text highlighting key information such as your USPs.

You don’t need to use all of these, but check them out in Google Ads and use the ones that are useful to you. Test different ones keep the clicks, calls or visits coming in.

8. Use remarketing for multiple chances to sell

Visitors tend not to buy on their first visit to your website. However, there are things you can do to have multiple chances to sell to the same visitors, even after they’ve left your site.

Retargeting enables you to display your PPC ad on other websites that your visitor goes to after they’ve been to yours.

It uses a ‘cookie’ to tag your visitors and then displays your ad on various sites displaying PPC ads, so your visitors are exposed to your ad multiple times in succession.

Get to know this technology and try it for yourself, as it’s a great way to re-engage with lost visitors, while you’re fresh in their mind.

9. Always track conversions

Simply put, if a visitor completes an action that you’ve predefined, these actions are called conversions.

Conversion tracking is important to give you the full picture and excellent info you can use to optimise your online sales process.

You can use free tools for tracking which will show you what happens after a customer has clicked on your ad. Whether they opted into your newsletter, purchased your product, phoned your business, downloaded a price list, brochure or report, or downloaded your app.

This is important as you need to know the keywords which are responsible for making sales. Once you know your most effective, profitable keywords, you can roll them out and increase your spend for more profits.

10. Test, test and test again

You can ramp up your results, cheaper clicks and higher conversions, by testing different parts of your ad and even your landing pages.

Try testing your keywords, ad copy, headlines, extensions, and so on, until something improves your results.

Run with the winners but keep testing new ads against them and you can keep pushing up your results.

Adzooma – the kickass PPC optimisation platform

Following these simple writing tips can make a world of difference to your Google Ads results. The more you learn and apply, the more kickass your ads will be – it really is that simple. 

If you want to flatten your learning curve and use a shortcut to Google Ads success, you can join us here at Adzooma.

We offer the perfect slot in-between your PPC account and you. You still get all the power, but Adzooma intelligently manages most of it behind the scenes. No complicated platforms, Adzooma simply tells you how to optimise your adverts and campaigns. You also get access to a whole host of other features such as automation, one-screen management, custom reporting and more, so as your knowledge grows you’ve got a tool that can grow with you.

Find out more about Adzooma and join for free today.