PPC Ads are no place to be subtle or to assume a commited reader who will carefully weigh all her options. No, searchers quickly scan ads and make a gut decision on which ad most deserves their clicks.
The Point? Make sure you put the bottom-line up front. Repeat your main point / keywords. Don’t be subtle and don’t assume the reader is paying attention.
Sometimes the main point is obvious, and sometimes it’s discovered through testing. But most of the time, it comes from a combination of:
- putting yourself in the position of the searcher, and
- wordsmithing ways to fit the main selling point into the title/first line of copy
Here’s an example of both techniques:
Wordsmithing to Fit the Sales Proposition Into the Title
The phrase, “Tax Sale Property w/o Auctions” won’t fit as a headline. But “No Bid Tax Sale Property” will. Obvious after the fact, but not obvious when you’re trying to write a challenger ad to test.
And not obvious that you should even take the time to think of these kind of options unless you understand the importance of not buyring the lede — of putting the bottom line up front.
Also, even if the meaning of “No Bid Tax Sale Property” is not immediately clear — it’s clear enough to compell searchers to read the rest of the ad for clarity!
Putting Yourself in the Position of the Searcher
If you put yourself in the position of someone looking for Tax Sale property, they don’t necessarily want to buy without auctions, they want to snap up the good deals BEFORE they go to auction. Hence the winning ad’s 2nd line of body copy: “Get Property Before Auction!” vs. the losing ad’s “Get Deeds Now Without Auctions.”
And what kind of a difference did these two techniques make?
The winning ad more than doubled CTR, boosting it by 139%
So let me ask you, are you frontlining the bottom line in your PPC Ads, or are you burying the lede?
