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Profit-Pulling PPC Ads
Karon Thackston
How to Write Facebook & AdWords Ads that Get Clicked
Profit-Pulling PPC Ads | 2Wordtracker.com
ContentsIntroduction to Profit-Pulling PPC Ads 5
Chapter 1: The why and who of writing paid ads 6
Chapter 2: Choosing an ad style 13
Chapter 3: Copywriting strategies for Facebook & Google ads 25
Chapter 4: Writing AdWords ads using Automatic/Dynamic Keyword Insertion tools 37
Chapter 5: Does Quality really count? 40
Chapter 6: Real world testing & tracking 48
Chapter 7: Analyzing PPC ads 59
Chapter 8: Creating a PPC copywriting plan 66
Chapter 9: The Three-Step testing method 73
About Karon Thackston 76
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Introduction to Profit-Pulling PPC Ads
Wordtracker.com
Introduction to Profit-Pulling PPC AdsI had a client a few months back who came to me because he wanted a landing page created
for his pay per click (PPC) campaign on Google. He was selling managed IT services. Naturally,
I needed to know what keyphrases he was targeting and what ad copy he was using. (He had
a search engine optimization company write the PPC ads instead of my agency, Marketing
Words.)
With one look, I immediately cautioned him that the ad copy was full of industry jargon. It spoke
the complex language of MIT grads rather than that of his small-business target customer. The
client decided it was fine … after all, it was just PPC copy.
After an extensive amount of planning and strategizing, the campaign rolled out. A few weeks
later, I followed up to see how things went. In short, they didn’t.
My client reported no new leads. Not one. Zero. Zip. Nada. He was confused and befuddled
because their keyphrases were on the mark, their day-parting (hour of day bidding) was spot on
and their bidding strategy was faultless. They had even paid a professional (me) to write their
landing page for them. So what went wrong?
One look told me … their PPC ads ruined the entire campaign.
They had virtually no clicks. While I didn’t interview the people who saw these ads and chose
not to click, my professional opinion holds true to my first impression: the ads were too full of
jargon for the average person.
If you’ve been interested in pay per click (PPC) advertising for very long, there’s one thing
you’ve undoubtedly noticed. All the talk is about settings and bidding strategies and keyword
research. Yes, all those things are vital to the success of your campaign. So is your landing
page (the page where your visitors will land after viewing your Facebook or AdWords ad). But none of that matters if you can’t get people to click on your ads.
Congratulations for having the forethought to understand this truth and take measures to
improve your PPC copywriting abilities.
The why and who of writing paid ads
Chapter 1
Profit-Pulling PPC Ads | 7
Chapter 1 | The why and who of writing paid ads
Wordtracker.com
Never thought about it? You’re not alone. Amazingly, most people who write PPC ads don’t
give a single thought to the true goal of these tiny, little ads or the people who will read them.
The why
Why write PPC ads? In four words: to get the click. That’s the primary goal of any paid ad
regardless of which platform it’s run on. From AdWords to Facebook to Bing or LinkedIn, there
simply isn’t enough room in these small ads to make the sale. We’ll cover this in more detail
in an upcoming chapter.
The who
When you mention the idea of writing for a specific target audience, writers look at you as if
you’ve just asked them to explain the use of shift ciphers when encoding top secret data. It’s
not that hard. In fact, you do it every day, all day long, involuntarily.
Think about it. As an example, pretend you’ve been offered an exciting new job on the other
side of the country. You really want to take this position, but you aren’t sure how your family
will feel about moving. When you explain the situation to your husband, your children and your
boss, do you use the same words? Do you use the same tone? Do you give them all the same
information? Certainly not.
While each person gets the same core message, you pull out the information best suited to
each individual when speaking with him or her.
Look at it another way. Let’s say you bought a new car and you want to write a letter – or email –
to several people telling them all about it. What you’re going to do is highlight the information
that will be of interest to the particular person you’re writing to.
For example, you’re going to tell your best friend all about how fast the car will go, how sleek
the interior is, what a super stereo it has, how sexy it makes you feel, etc, etc. But, your mom …
well, it’s doubtful Mom will want the details of how sexy you feel when you drive your new car.
With her, you’re going to talk about the safety features, what great gas mileage it gets, and that
you got roadside assistance as part of the deal. See?
Profit-Pulling PPC Ads | 8
Chapter 1 | The why and who of writing paid ads
Wordtracker.com
While the topic stays the same,
the information you include changes and
how you present that information changes
depending on your target audience.
Everyone communicates differently. Moms don’t care about the same things as teenagers do
when it comes to cars. Small business owners have different computer equipment needs than
the CEOs of large corporations. Women in upper-income levels are interested in brand names
and high price tags (for their perceived quality and status), while women with lower incomes
are concerned with finding the lowest price possible.
There are a variety of communication and behavioral styles, different approaches to the buying
process, vast changes in the ways men and women shop, and other factors in the copywriting
equation. This makes it important to know as much about your target group as possible.
Otherwise, how can you possibly know whether to take the my-car-drives-fast-and-makes-me-
feel-sexy approach or the mom-would-be-so-proud-of-me one?
This holds true for Facebook, AdWords or any copy you write. Here’s one AdWords example.
A dentist client I worked with came to me because he was running paid ads that weren’t doing
well. He was using these keyphrases (along with some others):
• dentist NYC
• Manhattan dentist
• NYC dentistry
His primary ad was:
Manhattan DentistCustom treatment plans, implants
& fast service by renowned dentists
It wasn’t getting hardly any clicks. Performance was very poor. And, I found out why as soon
as I asked him about his target audience. He was attempting to attract power suits in the Wall
Street district and had assumed that custom treatments and well-known dentists would be
important to them. A little research told us differently.
We adjusted the ad to read:
Profit-Pulling PPC Ads | 9
Chapter 1 | The why and who of writing paid ads
Wordtracker.com
Manhattan DentistLook like a power player with
teeth whitening, veneers & more.
Turns out, the power suits weren’t interested in custom treatment plans or how many accolades
their dentist had received. They were interested in vanity! They wanted that bright, flashy smile.
The new ad pulled at a much higher rate than the old one because it spoke to the dentist’s
intended target customer.
Don’t guess. Take the time to find out who your target customer is, what they want and which
tone of voice would appeal to them most. You’ll notice significant improvements when you do.
Determining tone
How do you know which tone to write in? The majority of your decisions will be determined by
who you’re writing to and why. There isn’t one, single right answer. Testing and experimenting
will give you more opportunities to discover which tone pulls the best results.
For instance, when writing to a group of college kids about an upcoming rock concert, you’d
most likely want to use a very upbeat, excited tone. Writing to small business owners about
disaster recovery insurance? Somber with a sense of urgency (“buy insurance now before an
emergency arises”) would be a safe bet.
When I start writing ads, I begin with several different tones/styles just to narrow down which
direction the surfer likes best. Then I follow the customers’ lead and tweak as necessary. If one
ad outperforms the others by a landslide, I’ll adjust the lesser-performing ads to have a similar
tone.
Active searchers vs passive onlookers (AdWords vs AdSense and Facebook)
Many PPC companies offer on-site PPC ads (those that will appear on the search results pages
or elsewhere on that company’s site) and also contextual ads that run throughout a network.
That means you’re frequently writing to two different types of searchers.
A. Active searchers – Those who went to an engine (like Google) and typed in a keyphrase to
find something.
Profit-Pulling PPC Ads | 10
Chapter 1 | The why and who of writing paid ads
Wordtracker.com
B. Passive onlookers – Those who saw an ad while performing some task other than searching
for a product/service. For instance, when checking their Gmail (for example) a person may
happen upon your ad because it was being shown through AdSense. Or, while updating their
status on Facebook, they noticed an ad in the sidebar of their newsfeed.
Active searchers are seeking something. They’ve gone to a search engine, typed in a query
and are looking to find a new blouse, a set of radial tires, information on water filtration systems,
the symptoms of whooping cough or whatever. They are in search mode. So, when they see ads
displayed on the search engine results page (SERP), it’s just part of the fruit of their labor. They
expect – they want – these results to answer their queries.
It’s usually very important to include a keyphrase in the headline of these AdWords ads. The
keyphrase helps the site visitor instantly know that your ad has what s/he’s looking for. While it
can certainly help, I don’t believe it’s nearly as important to use a keyphrase in the description/
body copy of PPC ads.
Depending on the length of the keyphrase, it can hog all the available space that should be
used for differentiating yourself, explaining a special or limited-time offer or otherwise enticing
the searcher to click your ad instead of the dozens of others they’ll see.