Without This, Your Entire PPC Campaign Will Fail

By Karon Thackston. © All Rights Reserved

That’s it! You’re all set! You’ve got everything in place for your pay-per-click (PPC) campaign. You’ve decided which platform to use (AdWords, Facebook, etc.). You’ve researched all the bidding strategies. For days on end you’ve agonized over which segments to target your campaign to. Now, finally, you click the magic button to turn your campaign on and…

nothing… crickets…

Results are significantly lower than you imagined. What could have possibly gone wrong? You didn’t miss a thing. Or did you?

If you’re like many of my clients, you neglected one of the most important pieces of the PPC success puzzle: your ad copy. Sure, the ad copy is small, but without powerful text that entices people to click, your entire PPC campaign is doomed.

That’s because nothing you’ve done on the back end of your strategy will matter one bit if people aren’t intrigued enough to click your ad. Unless somebody kicks the process off on the front end, everything else comes to a screeching halt.

This is a common error that plenty of people make when writing PPC copy. Most just lay fingers to the keyboard and start banging out the first thing that pops into their heads. When you take this approach, you end up telling searchers what you want them to know instead of what they want to hear.

The first step is always to know your target audience. The better you know them, their goals, their struggles and what they hope to gain from your product or service, the more convincing/compelling your ad copy will be.

While nobody likes the “P” word, the bad news is you’ve got some planning to do. The good news is writing great PPC copy can drastically and immediately improve your clickthrough rate.

What PPC Copy Is (and Isn’t) Supposed to Do

Before you begin strategizing to create ad copy that will skyrocket your sales, let’s take a look at what you can logically expect from your PPC ads.

Like all ultra-short copy, PPC ads are not designed to make the sale. Trying to convince someone with about 95+ characters that yours is the greatest product/service known to man is unreasonable. That’s what your landing page is for.

The sole purpose of a PPC ad is to get the click. You want to entice people to get more information. That’s it.

Are you relieved? I can’t tell you how many people I’ve met who were trying to make a sale via their PPC ads and were constantly frustrated. Now you know why that approach rarely (if ever) works.

Enticing… Intriguing… Inspiring

So how, exactly, do you convince people to click your ad? There are dozens of ways you can test. You might start with being enticing, intriguing and inspiring. And, yes… you will want to test (not guess) to see which of these appeals most to your target customers.

1. Ask a Question – Something unique happens when you ask a question. It triggers a physiological reaction in your brain. Once the question is asked (either written or verbally) your brain kicks into gear and tries to find the answer. This makes for immediate interaction with your reader.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Solve a Problem– Solving a problem in your ad copy is an intriguing way to communicate with prospects and get them to click your link.

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Use a Statistic – Statistics offer something unique: authority. When statistics are stated within your ad, it gains a bit of respect. That’s because most people will (without verifying the information) trust that what you’re saying is true just because you have quoted a legitimate statistic.

 

 

 

 

Take some time to understand who you’re communicating with through your PPC ad copy. Then give these three approaches a go for starters. Track your results and see which improves your clickthrough rate the most.

As with most things, it may take you a bit of practice at first. But once you’ve gotten a firm grasp on the steps to writing exceptional PPC copy, you’ll be able to quickly crank out quality ads that hit the mark.

Want more information on the PPC copywriting process along with plenty of real-life examples? If you’re up for boosting your clickthrough rates in a short period of time, get my Wordtracker Masterclass ebook Profit-Pulling PPC Ads: How to Write Facebook & AdWords Ads that Get Clicked.

Need help from a Certified Landing Page Specialist? Contact Karon today for  landing page copywriting or copywriting consulting and start getting results.

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