I’ve always said that writing ad copy for pay-per-click ads, particularly for Google AdWords, is an extremely challenging task. Here’s why:
- Google gives you what seems like 10 characters in which to fit your entire marketing message. OK, I am exaggerating, but most marketers and copywriters are long-winded folks by nature, so restricting us to somewhere in the range of 100 characters is tough.
- As opposed to a print ad or radio spot where writers and creative folks are able to express concepts with supporting visuals or audio cues, the typical ppc ad is relatively lifeless.
- Your ads appear right above or under ads from 3-20 of your closest competitors, depending on your category. Not exactly exclusive territory.
- If you’ve designed your ppc campaign well, you’re controlling which ad copy is appearing under individual keywords. That being said, even knowing which keywords a search engine user is searching for does not mean the writer knows the search engine user’s ultimate goal of searching.
OK, OK. I’ll stop giving copywriters and PPC professionals a reason to ask for a raise, and instead focus on a real-life example of solid ad copywriting. I was recently searching for a plumbing/heating company to repair our water heater, and realized that we’ve never really liked any of the plumbers we’ve used. Without much time to ask for any referrals from friends/neighboors, I did what most folks do these days – I googled it.
To protect the innocent, I am going to remove the actual geographic descriptors and company names from the remainder of this post. Here’s how the next steps unfolded:
