Five tricks to crack PPC

Specificity

With such a limited amount of characters, you don’t have enough space to be descriptive for description’s sake (see: waffle). When writing PPC ads, you need to get straight to the point. So, don’t mince your words. Keyword research is essential – make your word choices work for you by drawing on search volumes and commonplace phrases.

Headline power

First impressions count. Headlines are the first and most essential elements in any PPC ads. Primarily, people search for answers on Google so make sure your headline directly address a problem. In doubt? Use the keyword itself in the title. If you sell statement hats and are running PPC ads around those terms, ‘Statement Hats’ isn’t the worst headline in the world. Remember: Keep it simple (stupid) and avoid making your prospective customers guess what you sell.

Remarkability

You need to put your unique selling proposition front and centre. In your ad copy, you must demonstrate why your prospective customers can benefit from visiting your site/buying your products. However, it’s important to be honest about how distinctive your USP really is. Repetitive, run of the mill claims of uniqueness do more damage than good.

Read, read, read again

A typo or missing comma can spell disaster. If you double-check blog posts before uploading, you need to ten-check PPC ads. PPC ads are short and sweet, there’s nowhere to hide. This point is best explained with a hypothetical example. Imagine a private health insurance firm, trying to highlight their wide range of plans perfect for everyone, whatever stage of life they’re at:

Disabled elderly children? Commas are vital when making distinctions.

CTA

A call-to-action (CTA) is your final opportunity to persuade a customer to click on your ad. Whilst it’s important to be clear, avoid pushy or generic CTA copy that prospects will skim over – Buy Now, for example. For example, if you offer a trial to new customers ‘Free Trial’ may prove a far more effective call-to-action than ‘Find Out More’. The key is to try different CTAs and monitor their effectiveness. Conversion per Impression is an incredibly powerful metric, allowing you to determine the specific impact of a CTA on gross number of leads, or sales.

PPC ads are an incredibly efficient and effective form of digital advertising that every brand should consider. The tight word counts may seem intimidating at first, but learn to love this compact artform and you’ll be on to a winner.