With Google’s new expanded text ads (90 characters vs. 45) there is more room to make your case to potential buyers. One of the best ways to optimize a PPC account is to improve the ad text. This article shows how you can use local landmarks to boost click-through rates and conversions.
PPC Ad Text Best Practices
Google recommends having four ads per ad group or campaign, to give some variety and Google some leeway into what ad is served to what visitor. Finding the best 4 ads to run for your tight set of keywords is key. We find that testing one or two new ads at a time along side the 4 established ads gives good results. Test too many at once, and performance goes down as the new ads burn up impressions. Emphasize what makes your product or service stand out, such as:
- 100% Guarantee
- Free Shipping
- Free Exam
- XY Years Experience
- Licensed and Insured
- Etc.
Once you find a set of 4 ads that perform, stick with them until they don’t. We find that patience pays off in PPC, don’t make changes too fast to your client’s account. Google often needs time to digest changes, especially bid strategy changes.
- Be Brief (i.e., Free Exam)
- Use Geography (i.e., Philadelphia Dentist)
- Emphasize Differentiators (60+ Years Combined Experience)
- Test Different Ad Text Length (shorter ads often perform better than longer)
- Rinse and Repeat
Iterate Ad Text, Repeat
With a high traffic campaign like “dentist” and early warning indicators like phone calls, CTR, cost/click and average position you can get a good idea of what ad text is working quickly. Often you can find out if new ad text is good within one day.
Localize Ad Text
Using local landmarks or geography can help improve the performance of your text ads. In our Philadelphia Dentist’s case, his office is in the downtown area known as “Center City.” Adding Center City to his text ads boosted the CTR of his ads significantly (see Figure 1).
By orienting the ad to a well-known Philadelphia area, “Center City” takes advantage of local knowledge and makes the ad more compelling to locals. Another option would be “Rittenhouse Square Area” but “Center City” is shorter.
Figure 1: Example of Localize Ad Text in Philadelphia
Conclusion
Localizing ad text can boost CTR significantly. Adding some local geography to our text ads boosted CTR by over 90%.
Further Reading
- PhillyDentistry.com
- The website of Philadelphia Dentistry Dr. Ken Cirka DDS was the subject of this case study. Thanks again to Dr. Cirka for permission to use his PPC campaign as an example.
- PPC Optimization: Abbreviate Ad Text
- Abbreviating key phrases in PPC text ads can lower CPC and the cost per conversion. Our otherwise identical text ad with “Michigan” abbreviated to “Mich” decreased the cost per call by more than 35%, and increased the conversion rate by 33 percentage points.
- PPC Optimization: Ad Text Position
- Leading with benefits can improve PPC text ad conversion rates. We show a case study that improves conversion rates by 1.8X.
- PPC Optimization: Ad Title Tweaking
- Learn how small changes in ad text can make big changes in performance. By varying our Ad Title text we improved ad position from 2.4 to 1.0.
- PPC Optimization: Age Range Targeting
- You can target specific age ranges in Google Adwords to optimize conversion rates. By tweaking the bids on high performing age ranges you can tilt your campaigns to those folks more likely to convert.
- PPC Optimization: Average Income Targeting
- Targeting your desired audience within particular geographic area using income is a powerful tool you can use to improve your conversion rates. Average household income is just the first demographic that Google has rolled out for that purpose. Coming soon are gender, age, and parental status which could be used to further refine your campaigns.
- PPC Optimization: Be Specific
- Using specific copy in your PPC ad text can improve conversion rates. Giving searchers ad text that more closely matches their search queries gives them results that more closely match their goals.
- PPC Optimization: Call Only Ad Extensions
- Adding ad extensions to Call Only campaigns can boost click-through and conversion rates.
- PPC Optimization: Display URL Expansion
- By including keywords or calls to action in your display URLs you can boost text ad performance in Google Adwords. This article shows a real-world example of display URL optimization.
- PPC Optimization: Early Warning
- In Google Adwords, you can use phone call metrics as an early warning system to optimize text ad conversion performance. Avoid scary PPC ad spend using fast-reported phone calls.
- PPC Optimization: Excluding ZIP Codes by Income
- Excluding lower income ZIP codes is a more precise way than Google’s household income method. This article shows how to exclude lower income ZIP codes within your target geography in Google Ads.
- PPC Optimization: Experiments in Punctuation
- By varying the punctuation and plurals within your text ads, you can optimize their conversion rate and cost per conversion. This article shows a case study of call only text ad optimization.
- PPC Optimization: Gender Targeting
- In Google Adwords you can optimize conversion rates using gender targeting. Learn how to squeeze more leads out of your PPC spend by targeting high performing demographics singly or in combination.
- PPC Optimization: Strange Attraction
- Learn how using strange attraction in your ad text can lower CPC and boost CTR and conversions. Grab attention with letter and symbol combinations to optimize PPC campaigns.
- PPC Optimization: Wordplay and Humor
- Humor and wordplay can make your advertising stand out from the crowd. Unexpected word combinations and humor attract valuable attention and can garner higher PPC click-through and conversion rates.
- PPC Optimization: ZIP Code Targeting
- Learn how to add ZIP code targeting to your PPC campaigns to boost conversion rates. By optimizing the performance of individual demographics and locations, you can improve conversion rates to squeeze more leads out your AdWords spend.
- Supercharge Your Call Only Ads with Ad Extensions
- Google shows which ad extensions can be used with Call Only ads.