Need PPC Help?

In case you missed them, PPC Help Part One and PPC Help Part Two are here.

Today we are concentrating on the headline of your PPC ad. This is your one chance to grab the attention of your prospect. Since you only get one chance to make a good first impression, you’ll be glad you spent so much time fine-tuning your PPC headline.

The first line is your headline. This is the most important line of your Ad. This line has to stand out from all of the other ads on the page.

How do you do stand out from the crowd?

There are 3 keys I like to follow:

1) Relevance. If your Ad is relevant, then your ad will stand out from the rest. It will most likely be highlighted by Google for you as well, since it will probably have at least a word or two that are also found in the user’s search.

2) Keywords used in headline. I like to use the main keyword from my ad group in the headline if at all possible.

3) Get Emotional. You can easily connect with your prospective customer using emotional triggers (pain or pleasure).

So now that you understand that we need to stand out from the crowd using the 3 keys described above, let’s take action!

You’re going to do some competitive market research. I would first start out by browsing the current top headlines in Google when I search for my keyword. Chances are you will see a pattern in the ads that appear day after day for your keyword. Take note of those ads you see every day. They are the winners! You many notice the successful ads will have your exact keywords in their headlines.

Next, you’re going to start writing possible headlines. When you first start out with a new ad, I suggest you use the other ads as a starting point. This is a good start and you know you’re starting with something solid.

What headlines are your competitors using? Are they catchy? Do they ask a question? Do they grab YOUR attention? Use this information to craft a list of ten possible headlines for each ad group. Take this list to someone (preferably an “offline” family member or friend) and ask them to choose the 3 headlines that stand out to them. You may be surprised with the results!

Side note:  Perhaps you’re thinking that you should be incredibly creative with your headlines in order to “stand out”. I would strongly suggest that you don’t first try gimmicky headlines. I encourage you to first write solid headlines built from a foundation of sound advertising principles, then test these ads to further improve their CTR.

When you start with a solid foundation, and you test the results yourself, you can then start to branch out. You might hit a homerun with one of these “off the wall” PPC ads, however, but try them after you have already tried the basic ads.

For basic ad headlines, it’s important to follow these steps:

1. Research Successful Ads

2. Connect with Emotion

3. Use Keywords in the Headline

Have fun writing some killer PPC Ad Headlines! When I say “have fun”, I really mean it. It can be so fun testing out different headlines to see what actually gets people’s attention. Keep testing and trying till you find something that works for your market & product. Enjoy the process and be sure to ask questions along the way. I’m happy to help you.

Thanks for your support!

P.S. Have you contributed to the discussion yet? What are you waiting for? Come on, join in and share your thoughts in the comments section below!

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Creating Relevant Ads That Get Clicks

If you missed it, you can read PPC Help – Ad Creation Tips Part One here.

When you first start creating ads, the most important thing that you need to remember is that they must be relevant with what your users are searching for. You need to “speak” directly to the person researching your topic. A lot of PPC training material glosses over this topic, and that is very unfortunate. It’s so important!

All of my experience has shown that specific ads that speak directly to an individual person have the best overall impact.

I know that this sounds fairly obvious, but it needs to be said.

How do we achieve this?

In order to help ensure the most relevancy possible in your ads, make sure you are using “tight” ad groups instead of large keyword list groups.

For example, if you are an affiliate who is promoting a Dog Training e-book, then instead of having just one ad group with all of your keywords lumped in together, I recommend you have at least four ad groups including ->

Dog Training

How To Train a Dog

Dog Obedience

Dog Lessons

Now, you can create at least four separate and specific ads, one for each ad group. Your ad for “Dog Training” is going to be specialized for training, while your ad for “Dog Lessons” will be geared towards lessons. The “Dog Training” ad will definitely have the word “training”, since my keywords under “dog training” have the word “training” in them as well.

I also recommend that your Landing Page be optimized for each adgroup as well. Sometimes this is not possible. If you are an affiliate and you’re direct linking to the offer, chances are you cannot send traffic to an optimized page. By the way, direct linking for affiliates is dying a very fast death (especially on Google AdWords). Affiliates must learn to adapt to this new market or perish. But that is another post for another day!

Why so many Ad Groups in my PPC Campaign?

1) You will earn a higher quality score.

Not only will Google give my ad a better quality score if I have “dog training” in my ad AND in the landing page, but it will also make the words BOLD in the ad copy! This will help direct browsing eyes to my ad. Creating smaller adgroups with targeted ads and landing pages also helps Google determine ad relevancy within the Content Network.

2) Your customers will relate to your ad.

Understanding your market will help you write an ad that speaks directly to your customer. It helps to ask yourself some questions about your potential customers:

Who are they?

What is their biggest problem (relating to this topic)?

Why is your product the best soultion for them?

What will they lose if they don’t buy your product today?

What are their other interests?

Are there competitors in your market?

Anything you can do to better understand your customer will help you create a specific, successful PPC ad.

3) Your conversion rate (sales or opt-in) will skyrocket.

When Google loves you (high quality score) and each customer relates to your adcopy (High CTR), they visit your landing page which is designed to show how your product is a tailor-made solution for them (They make a purchase or Opt-in) = Successful Campaign $$$.

Have you subscribed (over there on the right hand side) to receive all the updates in this series?? Go ahead… Ya got nothin to lose!

P.S. Hope you’re ready for tomorrow’s installment in the PPC Help Series:

PPC Help – Ad Creation Tips Part Three: Headlines that Rock!

Need PPC Help?

One of the biggest PPC challenges for both new and experienced marketers relates to ad creation. We all struggle with this from time to time!

Welcome to Part One in this PPC Help Series designed to help you create killer PPC ads. You can apply these tips to all your PPC campaigns on Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing, MSN/Bing, as well as Facebook Advertising. I hope it helps you!

Once most people create their keyword lists for their PPC campaign, they think that they are done. There is a lot of focus on keyword research, isn’t there? It’s easy to see why Ad Creation often gets overlooked! Unfortunately Ad Creation is One of the areas that many PPC marketers only glance over! Creating Ads and continually testing them is just as important as selecting bid prices for your keywords.

Split testing Ads are the only way to know which Ads are the most profitable, and in this PPC Help Series, I am going to show you how to not only create, but to test successful ads in your PPC campaigns.

Why is the ad creation process is so important?

One of the main factors that Google uses to determine ad placement (rankings) is the click through rate (or CTR) of your ad. If you have a compelling ad that is related to a users search, they are more likely to click your ad, and that results in a higher CTR.  If you write better ads than your competitors, then you will have a higher CTR than your competitors.

Google uses CTR as a determining factor of how “relevant” your ad is. Its simple. Better ads that are more targeted to their users receive more clicks and therefore will have a higher CTR. Google rewards higher CTR ads with higher rankings and lower costs per click.

Let’s say you and a competitor have all things equal besides your ad text (bid price, landing page quality score, campaign history, etc being equal), then the ad with the higher CTR will be ranked higher. This means that with a good enough ad you can also have a higher rank than people who are willing to pay more than you are!

The benefits to spending time on your ads are clear…your clicks will cost less, your ad will be listed higher than your competition which will bring more traffic, which all adds up to higher profit margins!

Be sure to subscribe over there on the right hand side (look for big red arrows) to receive all the updates in this series!

P.S. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s installment:

PPC Help – Ad Creation Tips Part Two – Creating (Kick-Ass) Ads that Get Clicks!