5 Tips For Designing Paid Search Ads That Convert
As I engrossed myself in the NCAA Tournament Madness this past weekend, I couldn’t help myself from becoming obsessed with the logistics of the whole operation from a marketing standpoint. Within the first 8 hours of tournament tipoff, my bracket was already busted. So what do I turn my attention to? The marketing schemes of course! Between commercial breaks, court designs, jerseys, and even game time advertising, I was quickly overwhelmed. Even some businesses broke into the #MarchMadness and #NCAAtournament hash tags to advertise and build brand awareness during one of the most watched entertainment events of the year!
I naturally found myself analyzing the paid search ad campaigns posted all over CBSsports.com and Espn.com as well, as I continued to watch my bracket fall from grace.
Some more creative than others:
So what did I gather from all of the madness (besides the fact that I have a better chance of being struck by lightning 7 times before having a perfect NCAA bracket) ? That small businesses need to step up their performance in the paid search game! Where does a small business owner begin designing a paid search ad campaign?
1. Capturing Title
We all know a consumer’s attention span is very short…we can thank technology for that. So how can we make our brand more interesting to encourage clicks in the milliseconds we have available? A Capturing Tagline! Your tagline is where you can take advantage of making the consumer feel special, reminding them that they need your help, or persuading them with a call to action. As a quick example, below we have an ad that encourages a business owner to grow their business and what business owner doesn’t want to do that!? But the headline also says ‘we can help’. In this sense the advertiser is letting the business owner know they are ready to take the next step with their business and that they can rely on Prime Commercial Lending to help.
2. What Can You Offer Me?
Be familiar with your audience well enough to know what they are looking for when they are searching your target keywords. Knowing product or service details they are looking for will help with creating ad copy. Your Ad description lines will be where you prompt the user for a click. If you have a unique product or service detail that gives you an advantage over competitors this is the best place to leverage that feature.
3. Keyword Integration
Keeping your target keyword in your title is obviously a must for most paid search campaigns, but another tactic to reaching a broader search base in the same category is adding keyword variations in the product description, if they fit within the character limit. Constant keyword integration keeps your ads consistent with your brand, messaging, and landing page. A very important reminder is to have your keyword placement make sense! DO NOT keyword stuff your landing pages or your ads to improve ad quality score, as it will hurt your usability and rankings.
4. Branding
So you’ve designed a great ad, now comes tying your name and brand in with that conversion. Brand logo design and placement are a vital piece to bringing your ad together with your over all branding campaign. Include your company logo, trademark, and keep your ad color scheme consistent with your logo and website to ensure proper branding.
5. Where Can I Learn More?
Always including a landing page unique to the product or service you are advertising for better usability. Also, when adding URLs to your ad make sure you include the Display URL as a much cleaner and smaller version, so it is quickly recognizable to the searcher (This is also good for branding recognition later on).
Ex.
Destination URL: http://primecommerciallending.com/types-of-financing/commercial-real-estate-financing
Display URL: primecommerciallending.com
Related Resources:
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