Ad Copy: Understanding the Purpose and Tips to Better the Same

"Ads are planned and written with some utterly wrong conception. They are written to please the seller. The interest of the buyer is forgotten. One can never sell goods profitably, in person or in print, when that attitude exists." — Claude C. Hopkins,  Scientific Advertising

 Google gets billions of searches per day, around 3.5 billion to be exact and 40,000 search queries every second. That’s a lot of searches. More importantly, that’s a lot of people looking for answers to their questions.

When writing your ad copy, you are telling the searcher, “Come click me, I have the answer to your question.” This interaction typically lasts a few seconds in which your ad has to stand out from the crowd and entice the user to click or they will visit your competitor’s site instead. Your ad copy needs to:

1) Tell the visitor you have the answer to their question and why

2) Draw attention with a compelling headline

3) Stand out from other ads on the page

4) Convey the searcher they have to walk through your ad copy first before they can find out the answer

Some Handy Tips for Creating A Productive Ad Copy

Here are some tips that might come handy while creating an ad copy. Abide by these to yield better results.

1) Game of Keywords:

Remember, the average attention span is around 8.25 seconds, part of the reason why Google only lets you enter up to 30 characters in each headline. Consider including words from your keywords list in your text ad and words that people may have entered in their Google search.

2) Be Amusing:

Keep from trying to be amusing when writing your ad copy—you are convincing the searcher you have what they’re looking for, no one else, only you. Besides, that is your hard bucks at play or you’re company’s hard bucks so keep from showing off and help the searcher get what they are looking for.

3) Take a Walk in the Shoes of User:

Sometimes you have to try to place yourself in the shoes of the person behind the anonymous keyboard looking to Google to answer “Why their computer is so slow” in which Google points to your repair Ad hoping you will help them complete their quest. If your ad happens to show and the user clicks on it, your landing page will have to do the rest since it’s the first interaction the user will have with your company. It will be your chance to showcase your offer to that searcher.

4) Write for an Individual, Not the Masses:

It’s good to keep in mind that you are writing for a typical individual, not the masses. So keep an idea of your typical buyer before you as you’re creating your ad copy. This will allow you to craft your headline in a way that is meant for your target audience and not just anyone. 

5) Headlines Matter:

Most searchers are in the awareness stage of the buyer’s journey so they don’t know anything about your website except that your ad copy says you have cheap sandals on sale with free shipping. Those 30 characters in your headline are setting expectations for the user about what kind of information they expect to find on your site. Let your ad copy speak about your company because it’s the only thing the user knows about your website, so offer wanted information and site the advantages the searchers will have from clicking on your ad copy.

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