While there are many key components to an effective PPC campaign—from budgeting to targeting to bidding—the actual ads themselves are fundamental. After all, your PPC ads may provide the first impressions that many consumers have of your brand. And when ads aren’t written well, they can sink your entire PPC campaign.

Being able to write strong PPC ad copy is an invaluable skill—and it takes some time to develop that skill. With that said, here are some guidelines you can follow to strengthen your ads today.

Guidelines for Writing Effective PPC Ad Copy

It All Starts with the Customer

You know your product inside and out; you know it backward and forward. Being able to condense all that knowledge into a miniscule text blurb can be tricky—so what we suggest is putting yourself in your target audience’s shoes. What are their pain points? What are the things they value? What are the solutions they’re after—and how can your product fill that void?

Writing from a customer-first perspective helps to focus your ad copy. If you have buyer personas or consumer research, this is a great time to use it.

This isn’t just about the content of your ads, but the actual grammar of your ads. Consider these two brief pieces of text:

• We can help you regrow your hair.
• Regrow your hair today!

The differences here may seem subtle, but they’re instructive. The first ad is all about the business; the second one shifts focus to the consumer. That small change in focus is crucial for making that second ad more appealing.

Focus on Benefits

Along the same lines, we’d generally recommend writing about the benefits your product can offer. How it works isn’t the most important thing. How you developed it isn’t that important, either. What’s important is how it makes people’s lives better. That’s what your audience cares about—what’s in it for them.

Keep your ad copy benefits-focused, then. Have a list of all the value your products can add to the consumer’s life and use that list to guide your ad copywriting.

List Your Distinctions

One thing to remember about PPC ads is that they are displayed in clusters; in other words, your ad will be displayed alongside ads from your competitors. As such, it’s worth spending some time listing the things that make your company or your product distinct.

Is yours the only product of its kind to come with a money-back guarantee? Is it the most affordable product in its class? These are the kinds of distinctions to consider in your PPC ad copy.

Now, there is much debate about whether or not you should list prices in your PPC ad copy. Our take? It just depends. If you’ve done enough research to know that your prices are competitive, then by all means include them. But if you’re on the high end, or you’re just not sure, then it’s better to omit prices from your ads.

Include a Call to Action

All good marketing copy includes a call to action—and that includes even something as small as a PPC ad. Make sure you provide a brief, action-oriented initiation, urging the reader to take the next steps to learn more about your product.

Of course, you’ll have limited space to work with here, but you can still write a pithy CTA that packs a punch. Something as simple as Shop today, discover more, or request a quote can work just fine.

Don’t Forget Keywords!

PPC copywriting is incredibly keyword-focused. While it’s certainly possible to get too carried away with keywords, at the expense of real meaning, you should include at least one or two keywords in your ad copy.

Specifically, we’d recommend including them in either your first or second headline. That’s where keywords will have the most weight and make the biggest algorithmic impact.

We’d actually recommend going a step further and using your keywords in a way that mirrors the language of search engine queries. This is where a little keyword research comes in handy. If you find that most search engine users look for hair restoration in Charlotte NC, that’s the phrase you should use—as opposed to restoring hair in Charlotte, NC, or some similar variant.

Look at Your Competitors

While originality is usually desirable in online copywriting, it’s wise to pay attention to the ads your competitors are running. If you see one that you think is really good, by all means copy it for your own ads—possibly with minor tweaks to make it more relevant to your products. “Borrowing” a really good tagline or a clever turn of phrase is perfectly fine in PPC copywriting.

Always Proofread!

This might almost go without saying, but ads that have spelling mistakes or grammatical errors will undercut your credibility and call your professionalism into question. If you write your own ad copy, hand it to someone else to proof. That second pair of eyes will help you catch little goofs you’d otherwise overlook.

Write Ads That Get Results

Again, a PPC campaign is multi-faceted, and there’s much to consider. The nuts-and-bolts of ad copywriting should never be overlooked, however. To learn more about writing effective ads, or to discuss how ads fit into the big picture of your digital marketing approach, give us a call today. The enCOMPASS team is always eager to talk PPC!