Google and Bing Ads: Ad Copy Best Practices That Rock Search Results

Advertisers may overlook ad copy, a meticulous and unsexy aspect of PPC ads. With the advanced options for targeting, automated bidding, and data crunching, ad copy can take a backseat in the PPC van.

However, messaging is the crux of ads, and great ad copy can help overcome deficiencies in other aspects of your PPC campaigns. In this article, we’ll explain the importance of ad copy and how to write stellar ads that translate into tangible successes. Also, we’ve focused on aspects that are similar in both Google and Bing.

Bing Ads has been good about replicating most functionalities of Google within their platform, so unless otherwise stated, a Bing analog in functionality is available.

1. Why Focus On Ad Copy?

Better ad copy, more often than not, increases click-through rate (CTR). And improving CTR kills two birds with one stone: it helps improve Quality Score, and also increases your website traffic. The importance of Quality Score cannot be stressed enough. A higher score is basically like a discount applied to your ads for doing so well.

If you want a high Ad Rank score so that you can obtain the most coveted positions on the Google Search Pages, increasing your quality score is your number one ticket to Discount Land.

Even though Google claims that Quality Score is not used at auction time to determine Ad Rank, the components of Quality Score (expected CTR, ad relevance, and landing page relevance) are indeed used as part of the algorithm. Here are Google’s exact words:

The 1-10 Quality Score shown in your account is an aggregated estimate of your overall performance in ad auctions; therefore, it can’t be used at auction time to determine Ad Rank. Real-time, auction-specific quality calculations of expected click-through rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience, among other factors, are used to calculate Ad Rank at auction time. These factors, which are based on things known only at the time of the auction, can heavily influence the quality of the user’s experience.

Google says ‘real time, auction specific’ calculations use the same criteria that judge your Quality Score, along with some other stuff (‘among other factors’). So when Google says your Quality Score isn’t involved in your Ad Rank, it may mean that your current Quality Score might not be the exact numbers they use (the actual numbers can fluctuate in ‘real time’), but they use similar numbers, along with other information, to determine your Ad Rank.

Aside from the long-winded description of why it can help you earn a discount in ad auctions, improving your CTR is just going to be better for your business. You’ll simply have more users and opportunities to showcase your business and website.

A certain percentage of these users will turn into business and revenue, so you are increasing your chances at making money. That’s a worthwhile cause. And now, onto creating the best ad copy!

2. Define Target Audience/Buyer Persona

In order to create engaging and clickable ads, you need to know your target audience inside and out. It is easy enough to suss out basic attributes of your minimally qualified customer. Think about demographic information like age, gender and location. However, you can get more granular with their information. What is the problem they are seeking to solve? And how do you (or your product or service) solve that problem?

Interviews with previous customers are great at elucidating the characteristics that your clients/users like about you. Once you understand these traits about yourself – and about the people who enjoy these traits about you – you’ll have a much clearer understanding of how to sell others on your value.

You also need to categorize the type of people that your customers are. Do they have a particular role in life? A particular job? What is their lifestyle like? What are their interests? What are their personal goals?

Why do these users go to companies like yourself or your competitors? What do you provide for them? What kind of information are they looking for about your products and your competitor’s products?

If you’re a B2B company, you can approach it systematically by creating profiles of real customers and trying to find patterns to the profiles you start creating. Is there a specific type of company, a specific job title, a certain sized company, or a distinct industry that keeps popping up in your documented profiles of customers? Now, you’re starting to create the buyer persona.

3. Expanded Text Ads For Google

Via WordStream

Know the rules of expanded text ads:

• There are three headline possibilities, two headlines are mandatory. But that bears repeating.
• Expanded descriptions have two fields of up to 90 characters, so there’s plenty of room to highlight your value proposition, unique selling points, and benefits that you provide to your customer.
• The final URL is the destination URL where you take the user, and the display URL that is seen in the ad must contain the same domain as the destination URL.

So, there are actually three headlines. The first one can be up to 30 characters and is the most important aspect of the ad. The second headline doesn’t always show and is also 30 characters.

Via WordStream

It can also be truncated because certain characters do not take up the same amount of pixels.

Via WordStream

Google recommends limiting both headlines to a total of 33 characters if you’re sensitive to truncated headlines.

4. The Ever Important Headline

The attention spans of humans are terrible, especially when faced with the abundance of text on a search page. Humans scan fast, and a salient headline can slow the user down to read more.

One no-brainer tactic is to use a keyword or search term in the headline. This is probably a point made by all educational articles on ad copy headlines, but it must not have a 100% adoption rate yet, because it is still the top recommendation. You can also include a unique selling point (USP) or benefit.

Definitely test different headlines as an important attribute that you want to continually and incrementally improve on. While all components that we’ll describe are worth testing, some components are more valuable than others.

For example, the path of the display URL doesn’t matter as much as the headline. Making impactful changes to the headline are much more likely to have an effect on ad performance than making changes to the path copy of the display URL – even if both are worth testing.

5. Original And Compelling Copy

Via Neil Patel

When testing headlines, even just being different can help you stand out in today’s market, where so many people do the same thing. The example above complies with the first few rules of ad copy development, mainly to include the search query in the headline.

This may seem contradictory, but this speaks to the competitiveness of Google Ads these days. Everyone has read the same articles, and are ‘spying’ on the same competitors. While some overlap is anticipated, if you’re a business that can come up with an ad that follows the traditional principles AND looks different, you’ll be in another world of ad copy performance – and that’s a target worth shooting for.

6. Description

The description is the meat and potatoes of your ad copy. If you’ve made your headline salient enough, you have another 80 characters to describe your value proposition, your benefits, and introduce the all important call-to-action to spur your audience to click on your ad.

7. URL Paths

The two URL path fields each contain up to 15 characters each that you can use to describe your offering.

These URL descriptors don’t necessarily need to reflect accurate pages on your website. Rather, these are opportunities to call out locations relevant to your business. For example, if you’re targeting users in Sacramento with your ads, one of the URL paths could be ‘Sacramento’ so that a user can see that whatever solution you’re providing could be unique to his or her current location.

This URL path would speak to an attribute that distinguishes your brand as a match for the user, even if the location doesn’t matter much in the relevance of your product. You could similarly put ‘USA’ in the URL path, even if all your campaigns target only users in the United States.

8. Dynamic Keyword Insertion

Dynamically update the ad copy with the keywords from your ad group that triggered the ad. This is great for ad relevance, and thus Quality Score. Dynamic Keyword Insertion also allows you to go over the character limits.

Via WordStream

However, there can be downsides to Dynamic Keyword Insertion.

• Don’t include misspelled keywords in your ad groups using Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI); the misspelled keywords will be spelled out as such in your ad.
• You can go overboard with how relevant your ad is with your keyword using DKI.

Via WordStream

9. Value Proposition

What is original about your offering? This goes back to compelling ad copy, but also speaks to your business itself. It is important to understand the competitive landscape and who all the players are.

This can sometimes be overlooked, because the truth is bleak. If you can’t separate the difference between what you and your competitors are doing, then maybe there is no difference. There are a lot of companies doing the same thing, and the competition can be fierce. Find at least one distinguishing attribute that describes your business and run with that.

While these are landing page value proposition examples, you’ll be expressing the same sentiments in ad copy, so it is useful to see how to concisely word your value, regardless of the ad copy location.

Via Conversion XL

In the above example for a Stripe landing page, the ‘what’ and the ‘who’ are clearly stated, which are two crucial components when trying to convey value. Stripe does it magnificently in a concise manner. The audience immediately recognizes what Stripe is about and who they can provide value for. If you are stripe, and you prequalify your ads with the value proposition from above, you are much more likely to attract the right users to your website landing page and to get that precious conversion, which is the big goal of your advertising campaigns. Let’s take a look at another great value proposition.

Via WordStream

Again, Slack – like Stripe – has answered the question of ‘who’ and ‘what’ they are about. If you’re a team that needs a messaging app, Slack is for you. They even added some social proof for good measure.

They helped a team that puts robots on Mars, as if to say, does your team do anything more demanding? Cutting down the words necessary to describe your value proposition is a great exercise for your marketing team. Make it a competition. You’re bound to come up with some great, concise value propositions that you can test out in your ad copy process.

Let’s look at a final example that focuses on the benefits of a specific product. Can you list the benefits of your product? If you can’t list even these attributes, then your business model could be in trouble. Really know your product – inside and out – and the value you provide for businesses.

Emphasize benefits over features.

Via WordStream

Here, Unbounce cuts straight to the chase of the ‘who’ and ‘what’ in their subheadline. They don’t mess around with unnecessary words, they reiterate their value by turning it into a call-to-action, and repeat the easy process they provide with icons to put the nail in the coffin. It doesn’t get simpler or more straightforward.

10. Appeal To Emotions

Negative ads work. While performing the basics – in terms of including the keyword in your headline – can help ads, if you want to be the best of the best with the highest click-through rates, you’re going to have to appeal to your user’s emotions. And you can’t hold back.

We saw how original and compelling ad copy can counteract the same ol’ thing that makes it hard to distinguish one ad from another. Using emotions and negativity in an ad can seem manipulative and unnecessary if your product and brand are already top notch, but stepping it up in the emotional department doesn’t have to be insincere.

In order to write truthful emotional ads, you need to have empathy. You already know who your target audience is, now you have to decide who you’re writing your ad copy as and the emotion you’re trying to elicit. There are a few go-to emotions that work: disgust and affirmation. Let’s take a look at a few ads.

Via WordStream

The two ads above illustrate the power of affirmation as an emotional tool to increase CTR. The first ad is OK with its promotion, but combined with affirmation, the CTR increased by over 33%.

Let’s take a look at ads that tap into the emotion of disgust.

Via WordStream

You can guess which ad on weight loss had an almost 50% higher CTR. Sometimes you have to take some calculated risks to see what can work better, and these ads are an example of the payoff.

11. Create A Sense Of Urgency

Incorporate into the message a reference to time or, rather, a lack of available time.

Another go-to emotion is fear. Specifically, Fear of Missing Out (or FOMO) is a type of loss aversion where users see others participating in something great, and don’t want to miss out on it. This is fairly straightforward. If you’ve ever heard of friends going out together without an invitation, then you know the feeling.

Although it may seem a little cruel, this is the type of feeling you want to tap into when you’re trying to get users to click on your ad. They have to feel like the offer is so good that others are getting something that they aren’t at the moment.

Limited time offers creates this sense of urgency, because they don’t have an indefinite window of opportunity. Another way to induce FOMO is to show how many people have already used your product.

12. Call-To-Action (CTA)

The call-to-action is one of the most important aspects to ad copy writing. We won’t get too much into detail on the CTA, because many optimization points concern non-copywriting aspects. However, it is of utmost importance to have a unique-as-you-can call-to-action – that can also be found on the landing page in pretty much the same wording.

What do you want the user to do? Download a free Ebook? Sign up for a free trial? Take advantage of a discount? Get a free consultation? Purchase a product? Whatever it is, just say it at the end of your ad. It is as simple as that. This is your closer; your knockout punch. It’s your strong finish, and all you have to do is say it. Be clear because there’s no time to hold back.

If the user doesn’t want to perform your CTA, at least you pre-qualified them not to waste your ad spend. Never leave home without your CTA.

13. Ad Customizers

Ad customizers are a great way to update your ad dynamically based on a number of user attributes, like the users’ searches, device, location, and time. You can also insert price and time left before sale ends, which is also available in Bing Ads. This countdown capability instills the urgency in messaging we discussed earlier, which can tip the motivational scales of your audience.

The tailored messaging options are flexible, and using these customizers can be a great way to tailor messages for specific products or landing pages and pre-qualify users – a great way to increase conversion rate, which is one of our number one goals, after all!

You can use ad customizers throughout your ad, except in the destination URL. Customizers are parameters that are put in an ad using brackets like these {…} utilizing data that you upload in a spreadsheet for Google (or Bing) to apply.

14. A/B Testing Makes A Difference

Making just one change to your ad can make all the difference in the world. Throughout this article we make suggestions for each and every component of the ad. It is important to test out each of these components separately to discover how differences in each compare when all other factors are equal.

Running A/B tests appropriately can be a hassle and confusing, which is where experienced PPC marketers can provide value when you need to focus on other aspects of your business.

15. Third Party Competitor Analysis Tools

While you always want your business to be distinctive in its own way, with its specific differentiators, unique selling points, and benefits, copying and stealing from the competition is also a staple of great PPC, and indeed, of marketing.

There are many third party online tools for scoping out the PPC competition. The thing to remember is you don’t want to copy the exact strategy of your competition. You want to tailor the strategy to your business, and do it uniquely and better.

SpyFu and SEMRush are the most well-known keyword competitor analysis tools out there, but there are others.

There’s also the free tool by Google, called Auction Insights.

When using these competitor analysis tools, it is important to remember that you really don’t know what your competitors are doing unless you go straight into their accounts. For example, you have no idea their funnel strategy, their quality scores, their internal costs and overhead, etc.

Therefore, because their circumstances can dictate completely different strategies, you shouldn’t take the incomplete information from these third party analysis tools too seriously. For example, these tools could indicate that your competitors could be bidding on top-of-funnel, short tail keywords that simply don’t make sense based on what you’ve tried in the past.

However, there are many reasons – that you simply don’t know – as to why your competitors are bidding on these keywords. One reason is that they might have a really good sales funnel and touchpoint system in place to move users down the funnel. Another reason is that they have no idea what they’re doing, and they’re bleeding money.

Without insider information, it is useless to speculate. These competitor tools give insight, but insight is limited and your expectation should line up with the level of information you’re actually getting when you use these competitor analysis tools.

16. Searcher Intent

This ad copy boosting tactic simply refers to digging deeper than ever into the meaning of the keywords you’re running.

You can run manual searches of the keywords to see what other companies are doing to monetize a particular keyword. If you see more research-focused results, links to Wikipedia type pages, blog posts, or other informational sites, then these are indications that your keyword is not worth bidding.

Of course, if you’re bidding for awareness, and purposefully targeting research-focused keywords, and then advertising a research-focused ad for someone just seeking information, then this is completely different.

However, many times, you’ll see companies advertising for research-focused keywords and giving the user buyer-focused ad copy. Don’t let yourself be that type of advertiser.

17. Edit In Bulk

When making changes to multiple ads within many ad groups within countless campaigns and accounts, PPC managers can lose their minds without a tool like Bing Ads Editor or Google Ads Editor. Use these tools to easily make bulk changes across many ads to save yourself time.

Via WordStream

18. Use All Relevant Ad Extensions Possible

There’s no reason not to be using sitelink extensions if you have more than one web page on your website. While data shows that users often don’t click on sitelink extensions, the real estate (i.e. space) that you get from adding more text to your ad is worth the effort. More space means greater CTR.

Similarly, unless there is a finite way to describe your business, you should always use call out extensions to highlight benefits that you don’t have room to address in your main description or headline space. These are similar to sitelink extensions, except they don’t direct you to a link.

There are a plethora of ad extensions. If you can find a relevant reason to use them, then use them.

19. Use Numbers And Data

There’s nothing like cold hard numbers to illustrate for users exactly what they’re getting. Using concrete numbers instead of insinuating the value that users could be getting in broad terms can be more convincing.

Specific numbers can seem more authoritative, especially when they’re specific without the exaggeration of a commonly used description, like ‘No. 1’.

Using exaggerated numbers can make it seem like you’re pretending to be something you’re not.

Via Neil Patel

Via Neil Patel

The second ad outperformed the first ad by 88% in CTR. Specific numbers can be more persuasive, and is something you can easily test in ad copy.

20. Social Proof

Showing numbers of customers or satisfied users is an easy and tried way of showing the world that your company is legit, and has a little bit of the FOMO strategy in it. When users see that others are reaping the benefits of your product, they’ll attach more credibility to your brand.

Via Neil Patel

And you don’t even have to use outrageous numbers. Indeed, as we learned in the previous section on numbers, a lesser – but more realistic-sounding – number might work better in convincing a user who is familiar with ads that tout themselves as greater than they actually are.

Don’t be shy about how much business you have, and be transparent about what your business has done in numbers. The credibility gained from honest and transparent social proof numbers can be the tipping point in getting that click.

Via Quick Sprout

Finally, another tactic you can apply is to ask people to join your following, and include how big that following already is. This is social proof and numbers in one. Find ways to frame a conversion as being a part of an exclusive group that gets unique benefits, and you’ll be on your away to racking up conversions that compound in value.

21. Be Repetitive

This ad copy principle shouldn’t be confused with creating stale ads that never change.

Rather, brand recognition comes from making connections. If you have a catchy phrase or something that can appear in many ads across channels, then you can start to embed your brand into people’s brains, which is important for the all important ad recall metrics.

There’s a reason that catchy tunes as a commercial tactic haven’t gotten old. People simply remember a business better when there is brand consistency across all channels of ads.

22. Reciprocity

Reciprocity ties in with value proposition, benefit, and call-to-action – all in one. If you want to get someone’s contact information or money, you’ve got to give them something first.

It sounds basic, but giving something first is always a great way to win someone over.

For example, you can offer a discount or free shipping if you have a product you’re selling through Ecommerce. Lead generation inherently has reciprocity, because you’re usually offering some educational content for the contact information (i.e. whitepaper, ebook, case studies, etc).

Make sure you’re not only providing value, but that it seems like a no-brainer to do business with you because of the additional stuff you’re providing for free. And make sure what you’re providing really is ‘free’.

Even with lead generation, users are paying with their information. So when you’re providing lead generation assets, make sure they’re really valuable.

A Final Word

Sometimes it is easy to gloss over the nuances of the ad copy process. We decide to do the minimum: put the keyword in the headline, include a CTA, list a benefit. And then we forget about our ads, thinking that at least the ads are true to our business.

However, the competitive landscape of PPC requires that you continually make progress with your ad copy to improve CTR and quality score. The competition is smarter than ever, and there are tools galore to help you make your ads more relevant. If you let your ads grow stale and only do the minimum, you’re falling behind. Stay proactive, continually test, and you’ll be on your away to PPC domination!